A City Without Walls
by Azusina
Summary: 5 years after the war and Harry finds a bedridden Malfoy trapped in a rose garden within his own mind. It's Harry's job to get him out by going in and visiting him there. It won't be easy though, especially considering the fact that Malfoy may have already gone mad.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Just a quick note then I'll get out of your hair. This story takes place about ten years after Deathly Hallows. It remains faithful to canon for the most part, but diverges at the end of the battle of Hogwarts. In this piece, neither Snape nor Voldemort died at that point. I won't give specifics on what happened after, because that isn't what this story is about. You'll know all you need to know as you read it, so I hope you do and I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: Harry and Draco belong to J.K. Rowling, my dear queen.

* * *

A City without Walls

"It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls."

-Epicurus

* * *

I

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…"

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

The five years following the end of the war were completely wasted by one Harry Potter. At least, that was the general consensus of the public as well as, more importantly, Hermione Granger. Harry disagreed wholeheartedly with the term "wasted," but whenever he tried to defend his case with Hermione she would simply shake her head and shove pamphlets in his hands.

In his opinion, only the first three years could be deemed "wasted." Those were the years he'd spent following Ron around in Auror training. Somehow, he'd managed to make it through all three years before he'd realized that, really, he'd had enough of fighting dark wizards for one lifetime, thank you very much. There were people (read: Hermione) who vigorously expressed their incomprehension on how it could have taken him _three years _to figure that out, to which Harry simply shrugged. He didn't much understand it himself, but at times he would remember how busy those three years had been-what with the funerals, the memorial building, the writing of the History of WWII (second wizarding war), the reconstruction—both in terms of the physical building as well as the employees/officials—of the Ministry, &c… and he would think that perhaps he had simply been too distracted by everything else to really sit down and contemplate what he wanted to do with his life.

But at the end of the three years, once they'd put him in red robes and given him his first assignment, he'd had his great epiphany and turned in his resignation. Of course, this resulted in a huge scandal, but by the time the Prophet had stirred up the hoi polloi Harry was already in Thailand.

This was the part in which Harry and Hermione disagreed. She thought that he had just been running around, going to amusement parks and rubbing sun tan lotion on girls—basically wasting his time. Harry thought of it rather more as a voyage of self-discovery. Never mind if he did go to the odd amusement park or two, and, ok, he may have rubbed some sun tan lotion on girls in Tahiti and maybe even a couple of guys in Palau, but it was all in the vein of self-reflection! Hermione was quite skeptical about that, but he would tell her about how much of himself that he'd discovered and she would let the subject drop, for the time being.

During the last couple months of that fifth year, Harry wrote up tens of lists of what he'd discovered about himself. He'd found that lists were quite effective when it came to appeasing Hermione. His average list looked something like this:

Stuff I've Discovered about Myself

I like green curry.

I like pad thai.

I like pretty much all Thai food.

I DON'T like octopus. Especially live octopus. In my mouth.

I love snorkeling.

I hate helicopters.

I find girls with long hair attractive.

I find some guys attractive. Er. Yes.

I love windy roads.

I get car sick.

I'm rubbish at card games.

I like reading fantasy books. Like Lord of the Rings.

While they weren't the most philosophical of lists, Harry still rather thought they were quite informative. He learned a lot about himself over those two years spent traveling, things that normal people probably already knew about themselves at the age of 23, but that Harry had been too busy to find out during his childhood. When he put it that way, Hermione stopped badgering him and let him continue traveling. She just sent a bundle of brochures and flyers with every owl.

It was nearing the fifth year anniversary of V day when Harry began to grow weary of foreign lands and started actually reading her pamphlets. Once he began looking at them, it was only a matter of weeks before he found one that piqued his interest. It was a thin packet advertising St Nurman's Academy of Healing and Nursing.

The war had been tedious and gruesome, a series of battles and skirmishes that wore on and on for two years. Harry had gotten quite good at the simplest and most necessary of healing charms, had found that they came quite naturally to him. Flipping through the packet, Harry seriously contemplated pursuing a career as a Healer, and then seriously wondered why the idea had never occurred to him before.

Healing seemed like the perfect vocation for him once he thought about it. The years of traveling were fun, but realistically Harry couldn't live that way. The part of him that Ron liked to call his hero complex hadn't diminished at all, even if it shied away from direct fighting. He did still have the desire to help people, and what better way to help than to heal? In the end, it wasn't much of a decision at all; it just seemed like the logical course of action. He arranged for an international portkey to take him back to London, and then, much to her glee, enlisted Hermione to help him study for his entrance exams.

Two years he spent in school, training. He was occasionally tempted to call them the best two years of his life. Finally, he felt that he was doing something just for the sake of wanting to do it. This was all his decision, and it was rewarding in ways fighting Death Eaters never could be. He even actually studied without prompting from Hermione, because he was interested in the subject and wanted to know as much as he could. By the time he'd graduated and acquired his license, he was at the top of his class and known as the highest ranking student in the top Healing University in Great Britain, rather than the Boy who Lived to be Chosen as the One to Defeat the Dark Lord. It was quite a nice change.

He began working at St. Mungo's not long after his twenty seventh birthday, and quickly settled into a comfortable routine. That summer, he attended Ginny and Neville's wedding and served as best man at Hermione and Ron's. His friends tried to set him up with many a woman and/or man, but he was happy by himself in his flat above Diagon Alley, and more than happy spending his days at the hospital.

Of course, he should have known that his easy, predictable life couldn't remain so. Not with him being Harry Potter. Really, knowing his life so far, he should have expected something like this, and yet, somehow, he still managed to be surprised. It all started the day his friend Sarah announced that she was going on maternity leave and Harry offered to take her shift.

Harry had been working at St. Mungo's for a few months now, but he'd still never been in the Janus Thicky Ward. The last and only time he'd gone there was in fifth year, when he'd seen Neville's parents and Gilderoy Lockhart. They were still there when he entered now, but they'd been joined by a good number of new patients—another byproduct of the war. Most of the patients shared rooms, like the one that housed Neville's parents, but the more high profile ones had rooms to themselves. Sarah's jurisdiction covered a couple of these single rooms—to be specific, rooms 417S-417W.

Everything went smoothly in the first four rooms; Harry changed their drip spells, renewed the stasis charms, and ran the usual tests. Then he opened the door of 417W and halted in surprise.

The figure lying in the hospital bed was very familiar, although Harry hadn't seen him in seven years. Somehow, sometime during those years following the war, Harry had completely forgotten about Draco Malfoy and his coma.

Harry had been too busy fighting in the Order's army to keep complete track of Malfoy during the war, but he'd heard rumors. Apparently, after the Battle of Hogwarts Snape had taken him to one of the Order's safe houses and he was kept under house arrest. No one really knew where Malfoy's loyalties lied during this period, but when Narcissa was killed at the end of August he officially changed sides.

But even though he declared himself to be part of the order, he still refused to fight outright. Harry remembered hearing this and the wry lack of surprise that he'd felt; of course Malfoy would be a Slytherin through and through until the end—all about self-preservation. The blond git had hid away in secure locations, helping in whatever way he could without exposing himself. This turned out to mean great deals of research and strategizing. In fact, he was even part of the team that devised the final plan to lure Voldemort in and kill him once and for all. By this time, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already destroyed all of the horcruxes and Voldemort had finally noticed. The dark lord had taken many pains to hide and protect himself, and it was only because of Malfoy's team's strategizing and Snape's sacrifice that they were able to get to him.

When Harry dealt the fatal blow, he was nineteen. That was the official V Day, the day Harry Potter cast his first and last Avada Kedavra. But even after that, there was still the army of Death Eaters to deal with, and that took another year, at the end of which Harry joined the Aurors and Draco Malfoy was deeply in a coma.

No one really knew how he ended up that way, but everyone noticed that over the three years of fighting, his luck somehow seemed to get worse and worse. Even hiding away in secure houses, Draco Malfoy had more near-death experiences than Harry who'd been fighting in the front lines. It was mainly accidents—falling down stairs or getting horrible cases of food poisoning or becoming deathly sick—and Snape's potion expertise helped to save his life many a time. How Harry heard of it, it was almost comical the way he kept getting hurt. Malfoy insisted he must have been cursed or something, but everyone was too busy with the war to pay him any attention. Ron joked that he probably broke a mirror or came across a black cat.

It all seemed pretty insignificant to Harry at the time. It was just something to joke about in between raids. "Did you hear? Apparently it was a flower pot this time. Malfoy was just walking under a window and it nearly fell on his head." Even when they heard that he'd hit his head and fallen into a coma, it was just mentioned in a fleeting conversation whilst setting up an ambush, and over the next seven years Harry had completely forgotten about it.

Now he was here, and Malfoy was here, and the reality of it was vaguely horrifying.

Unbidden, memories of the Battle of Hogwarts came bubbling up in his mind. He hadn't actively thought about it in years, but even so he could still see the chimerical fire in the Room of Requirement as if it had happened yesterday. He remembered exactly where Malfoy had clutched him, and how hard, and could almost imagine the bruises were still there.

Even at that point, Malfoy had looked horrible—all gaunt and pale and haunted—but now, lying motionless in the hospital bed, he looked even worse.

Harry moved further into the room, staring at the boy—now man—that he'd hated so fiercely for seven years, and then somehow forgotten about for seven more. Draco Malfoy may have looked gaunt the last time Harry saw him, but now he looked almost skeletal. His hair was longer than Harry'd ever seen it; the brittle blond tresses reached down to his elbows. Seven years was a long time to go without sun, and it showed in his translucent skin. Harry checked all of the monitoring charms and stabilizing spells, and everything seemed to be in order. Why, then, was he in such a sorry state, even when the healers were doing everything they could to keep him alive? It appeared almost as if he were trying his best to thwart them and die.

As soon as Harry finished what he needed to do, he made his escape. Being in the presence of such a weak and vulnerable-looking Malfoy made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

That evening, Harry went out to dinner with Ron and Hermione.

"Guess who I saw today," he said after the initial greetings were over.

"At the hospital?" asked Hermione. Harry nodded.

"Who?" said Ron.

"Draco Malfoy."

"Malfoy? Seriously? Man, I haven't heard that name in a while. Hmm… brings back memories…" Ron appeared to be gazing serenely at the wall. Harry thought he must be thinking about that time with the ferret, or that time with the punch, or—and now Harry was smiling too.

"Is he still in a coma?"

Harry turned to Hermione. "Yeah, he's in the Janus Thickey ward."

"What, the one with Neville's parents and Lockhart?" said Ron, coming back to earth.

"Yep, that's the one. But Malfoy's got himself his own private room."

Hermione nodded, "Yes I would expect him to. I can't imagine he'd mix very well with other patients, even if he's unconscious the whole time."

"He looks awful. Even worse than when we saw him at the Manor."

"Oh my. Are the healers neglecting him? I thought all that prejudice was over."

"No, the healers are doing everything they can. For some reason the standard medicine and spells aren't very effective."

"Hmmm," pondered Hermione, and Harry could almost see the gears working in her head. They paused in their conversation to order, then Hemione said, "Do they know what's wrong with him? Have they considered that he's cursed?"

"They've checked for signs of curses, but nothing's shown up. If he is cursed, it's nothing they've ever seen before."

"Is he… I mean, is he alright?" asked Hermione.

"He's dying," said Harry succinctly.

"Oh," said Hermione, looking at the glass of water in her hands and furrowing her eyebrows.

"Oh who cares," said Ron. "He's a foul git, so what?"

"You haven't seen him, Ron," said Harry, "It's awful. I wish there was some way I could help, but if Sarah couldn't do anything for him then there's no way I can."

Ron shrugged. "Whatever, mate. I'm sure he'll be fine. The twit's a snake through and through; you can probably count on his self-preservation to keep him alive."

Harry smiled at that. "Yeah, I suppose so…" The waiter brought their drinks, and Harry changed the subject. "Hey, did you hear? Apparently Sarah's going to have a boy. Now they're just deciding what to name him. Seamus says Priselda but Sarah wants something like Kate."

And from there the conversation fell into more lighthearted topics, and Harry pushed the unsettling image of Malfoy to the back of his mind. It came back later, though, when he was climbing into bed. It hovered before his eyes as he drifted off to sleep, worrying at his thoughts and his conscience.

…

He was laying face down, enveloped in a deafening yet calming silence. Once again, he had a firm knowledge that he was the only one there, and yet he wasn't positive that he was there at all.

An eternity passed, or perhaps it was only a few seconds, and Harry realized that this was really all rather familiar. He opened his eyes and sat up, not surprised to find himself immersed in a strange fog. A quick look around and the fog materialized into a semblance of King's Cross, and robes appeared beside him. Pulling them on, he stood up and began looking underneath benches. The disgusting, quivering thing wasn't there.

"It moved on," came the voice of Albus Dumbledore from behind him. Harry turned around.

"What do you mean? It died?"

"Something along those lines, yes."

Harry gazed at the twinkling blue eyes for a time, feeling quite content to simply stand there.

A moment later, a question occurred to him, and then his mouth was opening and he said, "Sorry, but why am I here again, Professor?"

"Ah, my dear boy. That is the question, isn't it? Why don't you tell me?"

And as soon as Dumbledore said this, the knowledge was there in Harry's head. Well, part of it anyway.

"It has something to do with Malfoy?"

"Yes. Let's walk as we talk, shall we?" and Dumbledore put his hands in his sleeves and began ambling down the walkway. Harry hastened to follow; as he was catching up to him, Dumbledore said, "It does indeed have something to do with Malfoy. Tell me, Harry, what do you know about him?"

"Well…I just saw him again today. He's still in a coma, and… he's not doing so well." Something occurred to Harry. "Do you know something about that, sir?"

There was a moment of silence in which they simply walked. Harry didn't feel any impatience however. He knew that Dumbledore would answer when he wished to.

"Do you wish to save Draco?" he asked first.

"I… well, yes, I suppose. If I could, I mean, of course I wouldn't just let him die."

"I thought as much."

"Sorry, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"I merely wanted confirmation, my dear boy. I believe… that your desire to save Draco has everything to do with why we are here."

"What do you mean?"

Another pause.

"I'm afraid Draco has been imprisoned."

Harry blinked. "What? But he's in St. Mungo's…"

"It is not his body that is immured, rather his mind…"

Harry tried to figure that one out, and gave up for the time being. Instead, he asked, "Where?"

"A place rather like this one."

"What, King's Cross?"

Dumbledore laughed and Harry frowned.

"No, my dear boy," he said. "I don't believe he's in King's Cross. This is your place. No, I'm sure that Draco's has taken a different form."

"I don't understand."

Harry was growing mildly frustrated. Dumbledore smiled at him kindly.

"This, as I'm sure you have guessed, is the area somewhere between life and death. The last time you visited, you were hit by the killing curse and yet there was something tying you back to the mortal world; you were not quite alive but not quite dead. Mr. Malfoy lies in a similar state now, although for very different reasons."

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, and Harry tried to absorb that information.

"Why? Was Malfoy hit by Avada Kedavra too?"

"No," said Dumbledore, but did not offer any further explanation. Harry let it be at that.

"Does he have something tying him to the living?"

"Yes." Again, Dumbledore didn't elaborate.

Harry thought for a moment. If Malfoy was in a situation similar to the one he'd been in, then…

"Can he come back like I did?"

"There is a way, yes."

"But you said he was imprisoned?"

Dumbledore nodded. "He remains there, has remained there, for seven years. But the way to escape has always existed."

"Then why hasn't he left?" Harry said, baffled. Dumbledore merely smiled.

They walked whilst Harry calmed himself down. It was rather easy—he found it hard to dwell on negative feelings here.

"Why are you telling me this? What does it have to do with me?"

"Ah, now you ask the vital question. You, my boy, have the ability to help him. Or rather, the ability to help him help himself."

"Er… could you explain that a bit more?"

"Of course. The world that Draco has lived in for the past seven years is infinitely large and infinitesimally small. Somewhere in this world, there is a gate that leads back to the world of the living."

"Is the gate very hard to find?"

"Not at all; it lies in plain sight."

"So… I'm supposed to lead him to this gate?"

"That is correct."

"Sounds easy enough," said Harry, thinking there must be some catch. "Wait, how will I get to his… wherever he is?"

"I believe that as soon as our conversation is over, you will find yourself there."

"Brilliant. Well then, it was nice talking with you, Professor."

"Likewise, Harry."

He turned and waited for the train station to dissolve into mist. The edges were getting fuzzy when Dumbledore suddenly said, "Oh and Harry, there is something else you should know."

Harry turned back around. The fog was beginning to obscure his vision.

"What?"

"You may find it difficult to convince Draco to find the gate." Dumbledore was just two sparkling blue eyes now. "You see, I'm afraid he doesn't believe that it exists."

"What?" Harry called, but everything had dissolved into whiteness and his vision was turning black.

"Farewell, my dear boy."

…

When Harry awoke, the first thing he became aware of was that he was laying on his back this time. Also, the surface on which he lay wasn't hard and smooth like the ground in his King's Cross. Rather, it seemed quite soft and strangely… loose.

He opened his eyes and, for a moment, merely lay and tried to take in his surroundings.

The first thing he noticed was the sky. In King's Cross, there was just the sparkling domed roof. Here, there was an endless midnight sky; a pure, deep blue bordering on black covered in more twinkling stars than Harry had ever seen. It gave the whole place a darker feeling—whereas in Harry's world everything seemed to suffuse a gentle but bright light, here the only light came from the stars. There was no moon.

Harry sat up and looked to his left at the ground. He was surprised to see that it was covered in white roses as far as the eye could see. No, that wasn't strictly correct. The ground wasn't covered in roses; rather, the roses comprised the ground. There was no dirt beneath them, and stranger still, they were all cut—there wasn't a single prickly stem to be seen. The white of the petals seemed to drink up the starlight and glow with it. Quite simply, it was the most beautiful landscape Harry had ever seen.

He turned to his right.

A few feet away from him sat a stone fountain. There were three levels to it, and on the top was carved what looked to be a delicate roman statue of a girl kneeling and holding a gourd to the basin. But what flowed from it and over the edges of each bowl was not water but a trail of more white roses. Harry gazed at the fountain for a moment, before letting his eyes roam a few more feet to the left.

There was a stone bench, carved in the similar elegant way as the fountain, on either side of it, but one caught Harry's attention more so than the other—one of them was occupied.

Draco Malfoy sat facing Harry and looking nothing at all like how he had when Harry'd seen him in the hospital. This Draco Malfoy was how Harry imagined he might have looked at the age of twenty were he properly fed and living in easy luxury at Malfoy Manor. His features were more gently angled than pointy, and his long hair was gathered in a loose braid draped over one shoulder. He looked wonderfully healthy, but Harry couldn't help but think that there was something strange about this Malfoy. For one thing, his clothes were like nothing Harry had ever seen him wear before. A strange tunic-like garb exposed his collar bone, cut off at his knees, and was tied at his waist by an intricate belt. He was veritably incrusted in jewelry—earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, and even anklets—and were those _pearls_ tied into his braid? But somehow it didn't look overdone, and somehow, despite his slightly-feminine face, he didn't look anything like a girl.

But still. Harry stared at him for a time, and Malfoy stared back impassively, and then the first thing that Harry said was, "What _are _you wearing?"

Malfoy scowled. "Haven't you ever heard of funeral dress?"

"Er, no. No I haven't."

"This," he gestured to himself, "is what I am to be dressed in at my funeral."

Harry blinked. "You have clothes set aside for that? Er, rather, a dress?"

"Of course," Malfoy replied as if it were obvious. "You don't honestly expect me to leave that sort of thing up to servants _after _I'm dead, do you?"

"I'm not really sure…" Harry was feeling rather bewildered. "I've never really thought about it, to be honest." There was a pause, then, "Wait, then why are you wearing it now?"

"Because I'm dead, obviously," replied Malfoy.

"Er, no you're not," stated Harry, staring at him.

"Well. Close enough." He waved a dismissive hand. "That's not the question though."

"It isn't?"

"Of course not. The question, Potter, is: why are you here?"

Harry looked around him again, shifting into a more comfortable cross-legged position. He picked up a rose and fiddled with it.

"Where are we, anyway?" he asked, ignoring Malfoy's question for the moment.

Malfoy looked around as well. "I would like to say my mother's rose garden… but that's not quite true. It is, and yet it's quite different."

Harry nodded. His King's Cross was different from the real King's Cross as well.

"Why are you here?" Malfoy asked again.

The white rose he held in his hands was strange. Its petals were silky like a real rose's, but it gave off no scent. None of the roses did. The air was pure and crisp and smelled only of stars.

"I think," said Harry slowly. "I think I'm here to help you."

Malfoy scoffed. "Sure you are." He turned away from Harry then, and called out, "Hey, Severus! This is your doing, isn't it? Well you can take him away now, he's an eyesore."

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry. "Severus? Snape's here?"

"I'm not so far gone that I'd want a disgusting Harry Potter look alike to entertain me!" He turned to Harry. "Go away."

"What? What's going on? What do you mean, 'Harry Potter look alike?'"

"Honestly," Malfoy muttered to himself, "I don't know why he'd send such a thing. He knows I hate Potter well enough. He's probably trying to aggravate me, giving me such an unpleasant gift. Although I suppose it's better than the last one. A fucking knife. Just to prove a fucking point."

"Er, I have no idea what you're talking about…" said Harry. Malfoy ignored him. Annoyed, he stood up and went to stand directly in front of the stupid git. "Listen here, Malfoy. I don't know if you're insane or what, but I'm telling you right now that I'm real. I _am _Harry Potter."

"Right," said Malfoy sarcastically. "Of course you are. Next thing you know he'll be sending me the _real _Severus Snape." He barked out a bitter laugh, and the darkness in it frightened Harry.

"Yeah, now you've really lost me. Weren't you just talking to Snape?" he shook his head. "Whatever. The point is, I'm Harry Potter. That's me. I work as a Healer at St. Mungo's. For some reason, Dumbledore sent me here to help you."

"Dumbledore?" Malfoy was suddenly paying attention.

"Yeah…" said Harry hesitantly. He was weary of how this strange and unstable Malfoy would react to talk of the old headmaster. "He told me the whole situation. You're trapped here, right? Well I've been sent to show you the way out."

Malfoy laughed again. "God, he's really gone all out this time, hasn't he? You're a fool, Potter. There is no way out."

Harry was beginning to see why Dumbledore said this would be difficult.

"Yes there is. There's a gate. Dumbledore told me so."

"Oh he did, did he? Well then, it simply _must _be true."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Malfoy."

"Well I don't appreciate your face. Life is tough."

"There _is _a gate. Why don't you believe me?"

"Why are you so sure that this gate exists, huh? Because Dumbledore told you? What makes you so convinced that he's telling you the truth?"

Harry frowned. "I trust him."

"Hmm, yes of course. I should have known; Gryffindor blind trust. Well I'm terribly sorry to inform you of this, but your trust is misplaced."

"Look, I know you hated him and, ok, he may not have always told me everything, but he's never lied to me before. Besides, what's got you so convinced that there is no way out?"

"I know there's no way out because Snape told me," he sneered.

"Oh, and what makes you so sure that Snape's telling the truth, huh? Is it because you trust him?"

"I trust Severus, yes, but that is not why I know he told the truth. He, I do not trust at all, but I know that he can't lie and therefore whatever he tells me must be the truth."

"Malfoy," said Harry blankly. "You've gone insane, haven't you?"

"I have not," Malfoy replied, scowling. "Though it hasn't been for lack of him trying." That last sentence was muttered to himself.

"Alright. Whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is the gate. Come on, let's go!"

"There is no gate, Potter!" Malfoy sounded seriously angry. He was raising his voice for the first time. "I've been stuck here for—god I don't even know how long. Surely it's been years?"

"Seven," said Harry softly. "It's been seven years."

Malfoy stared at him. "Seven years. This place doesn't change, did you know that? Never. The sun never rises, the stars don't move. I've been here for seven years! Don't you think that if there was a way out I would have taken it by now?"

Harry took a step back, for a moment feeling almost frightened of this crazed boy. But then anger overcame the fear.

"Yeah, I think you would have; only you're too stupid and stubborn to see it! I don't know why you won't believe it, but I'm telling you it does exist! I'll prove it! Just you wait!"

And with that, Harry spun around and began stalking off, leaving a heavily breathing Malfoy behind him.

He didn't know for how long he walked. It really was quite difficult to tell time here, with the monotonous flowers and without a moon as a guide. But when he eventually came upon the gate, his legs were pleasantly sore and he couldn't see Malfoy's fountain anymore.

It was really more of an arch than a gate, and Harry approached it somewhat cautiously. Carved from the same stone as the fountain and benches, it stood just a couple feet higher than Harry's head. He walked around it, examining it from every angle. It wasn't that he didn't trust Dumbledore to tell the truth, but Malfoy's conviction that it didn't exist had made him weary. Also, just the fact that Harry hadn't had the best experience with mysterious arches put him on his guard.

This one didn't have any strange veil, though, and Harry wasn't getting any weird vibes from it either. It really just looked like a simple garden gateway. Well, maybe not simple—the stone was carved into delicate vines and runes—but it did look like something that belonged in the Malfoy Manor gardens.

Now Harry just needed to prove its existence to Malfoy somehow.

He circled around it a dozen more times, encouraging his mind to work harder. How could he prove it to Malfoy if Malfoy refused to come see it with him? He couldn't take a picture of it—he didn't have a camera or his wand. He couldn't very well take it to Malfoy—it weighed a ton and besides, it seemed to be fairly well grounded in the roses. If he could take a piece of it… but that wasn't going to happen. It was made of stone for Merlin's sake, how was he supposed to break part of it off? Harry stopped his pacing. He was well and truly stumped.

Well this was just peachy. He'd found the gate. It obviously existed. But he couldn't prove it to Malfoy and stupid stinking Malfoy refused to come see it for himself. He sat down, or rather; he fell down on his butt. It was supposed to be a hard fall, but the stupid roses cushioned it and smothered the drama completely. For who knew how long, Harry sat there in front of the gate and shredded rose petals. It really wasn't as satisfying as it should have been, because the shredded petals simply unfurled into new roses.

Quite a while later, Harry was struck with inspiration. He could go through the gate, back to the living world, and then come back. If he brought something with him, something from the mortal world, then surely Malfoy would be forced to believe him. Harry stood up, displacing a great many roses. He made to walk through the gate, feeling exhilarated and immensely proud of his plan, but paused with one foot in the air, frowning. Once he back in the living world, how was he to return here? For a moment he was worried, but then a reassuring thought popped to the forefront of his mind. Dumbledore said that he was meant to help Malfoy. Therefore, there must be an easy way for him to come back, right? Since he hadn't helped Malfoy yet? Perhaps he'll come back in his sleep again…

Thus appeased, Harry strode with confidence through the gate.


	2. Chapter 2

II

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."  
― Isaac Asimov

He woke up in his bed, gasping and feeling like he'd just played a match against Slytherin. He fumbled around for a moment before he could find his glasses, and then shoved them on. Another bit of groping around his bedside table produced a clock. It was seven forty seven.

"Oh, _shit_," cursed Harry, jumping from the bed, all thoughts of Malfoys in strange rose gardens, for the moment, gone from his mind. Apparently he'd slept through his alarm and now he only had thirteen minutes to get ready and get to St Mungo's.

He pulled his clothes on in record time and dashed out the door, not even bothering to glance in the mirror—his hair was beyond help anyway. The second both feet were out the door he turned on the spot and apparated straight into the staff room at the hospital. He thanked Merlin Healers were allowed to apparated directly in; he would surely have been late if he'd had to maneuver through the hordes of shoppers outside.

Straightening his green robes and running a hand through his hair, Harry walked up to the sign-in desk and penned in his name and the time. He then made his way to his own patients, planning to take care of Sarah's after lunch. As he helped heal his first patient (a young witch who'd somehow managed to turn her hair into a mass of biting snakes) he tried not to think about visiting room 417W this afternoon. After seeing him so healthy in his dreams, he wasn't looking forward to the sight of a Malfoy on the verge of death.

There was no doubt in his mind that what'd happened last night was real. Sure, it had happened in his dreams, but Dumbledore had told him before that just because it was happening in his head didn't mean it wasn't real, and Harry still believed in that. Besides, it had felt too much like that time he died to kill Voldemort. He knew it wasn't just a dream.

Ron and Hermione weren't as easily convinced.

"I don't know, mate," Ron said, swirling his mug of beer. "That seems pretty mad, if you ask me."

It was after dinnertime already—Harry'd had to work late to get through all of the patients—and the trio was gathered at a local pub. The day had passed slowly, much too slowly for Harry's tastes, and he was already tired by the time he'd gotten to Malfoy's room. Once there, he'd rushed through the standard procedure and left as quickly as possible, trying to avoid looking at the sleeping form on the bed.

While his conviction that what'd happened was true hadn't wavered, by the end of the day he was getting nervous about tonight. What if he didn't return to the garden? What if he'd stupidly bungled up his one chance to save Malfoy, and now he was left to sit in that beautiful garden until his body in the real world wasted away? Like with any other problem, Harry had decided to consult Hermione. She always had the answer.

"Harry, you're sure about this?" she asked, sipping her pineapple juice.

He nodded. "Positive. It was exactly like the last time. Well, the beginning was. But even the part with Malfoy had the same… _feel_, you know?"

"Hmm," she mused.

"Seriously?" asked Ron, smiling. "Harry, even if it _felt_ the same, or whatever, that doesn't mean that it was real. I mean, it doesn't even make sense, does it? Why would you go back to that place? It's not like you died again."

"I don't know," answered Harry. He traced the wet ring left by his glass with a finger. "But like I said, or rather like Dumbledore said, I think it's 'cause I can help Malfoy."

"But then why now? He's been in a coma for, what, seven? Years now; why didn't you start visiting him in your dreams back seven years ago?"

Harry shrugged. To be honest, he'd been wondering that too. But the question of why now didn't seem all that important in the face of his more pressing concerns—plotting how to convince Malfoy of the gate's existence.

"Maybe it's because he came into contact with Malfoy?" suggested Hermione. "This is the first time you've seen him since he hit his head, right, Harry?"

"Yeah," he replied. "That's probably it. I don't really care about that, though. Listen, last night I just appeared there when I fell asleep. What if I don't tonight?" He was drawing nervous squiggles on the dark tabletop with a wetted finger.

"Oh, I'm sure it's alright, Harry," reassured Hermione.

"But Dumbledore just told me to get him to the gate. I didn't do that! What if that was my only chance?"

"Dumbledore said it'd be difficult, right?" asked Ron. "Then I'll bet he knew it'd take a while. If it is real, and you haven't gone 'round the bend, then I'm pretty sure you have your work cut out for you. Everyone knows the ferret's a stubborn idiot."

Harry smiled. "Yeah, I'm not arguing with you there. He seemed pretty adamant about the whole no-escape thing."

"Do you have a plan of how to convince him?" asked Hermione.

For a while they discussed Harry's plan. Hermione didn't really have anything more to add. Ron thought it was as good a plan as any. By the time Harry returned home, he was feeling much more confident. They'd decided that the best way for Harry to take something back to the dream-world would be to just hold it in his hand when he went to sleep. So that's exactly what he did.

…

Harry awoke directly in Draco's garden this time, lying on his back and wearing the worn pajama pants and baggy t-shirt that he'd gone to bed in. He flexed his fingers and was relieved to feel the chocolate frog securely in his grasp.

"You are horribly underdressed," said Draco Malfoy by way of greeting.

"Hello to you too," said Harry, getting up and brushing rose petals from his back. He walked over and sat down next to Malfoy on the stone bench. "Look what I got you." He held out the chocolate frog.

"What is that?" Malfoy sniffed.

"It's a chocolate frog," replied Harry.

"I can see that, nitwit. I meant, why are you giving it to me? Snape gave it to you didn't he. God, his gifts are getting stranger by the day."

"Snape didn't give me anything, what're you talking about? I haven't seen Snape since he died… Have you?"

"No, of course not, don't be absurd. He's dead, how could I have seen him?"

Harry stared at Malfoy for a moment. This would be even more difficult than he'd anticipated, if Malfoy had truly gone insane.

"Anyway. This isn't from Snape. I bought it at the hospital gift shop. It's a chocolate frog, from the real world."

"Oh, it's from the real world, is it? Just like you?"

"Yes! Why are you being sarcastic?"

"Forgive me if I find it hard to believe you," said Malfoy in a mock repentant tone. "It's just, you come and go so like Severus's little presents, disappearing and appearing willy nilly. Honestly," he returned to his normal drawl, "Do you think I'm an idiot? How the hell are you getting in here if you're from the _real _world, hmm? Pray tell."

Rolling his eyes, Harry said, "I come here in my sleep. I leave through the gate, back to the real world where I wake up."

"Right. Of course. I'm sorry, but _why_?"

"I told you already, I work at St Mungo's. You're one of my patients."

That seemed to momentarily break Draco from his sarcastic shell. "I'm your patient? What's wrong with me?"

"Oh, I don't know," it was Harry's turn to be sarcastic. "A great many things, I imagine. Not least of them is the fact that you're in a coma and apparently trapped inside your own mind."

"There, see? You admit it," said Malfoy, latching onto the part of Harry's sentence that was to his advantage. "I'm trapped. Trapped as in no escape."

"No, you're not. Dumbledore told me about the exit. We've been through this already, Malfoy!"

"Yeah, we have! I already told you that you're delusional! Insane! There is no exit!"

Harry laughed at the sheer irony of that.

"_I'm_ insane? Pot, kettle, Malfoy. Anyway, if there's no exit then how come I found the gate last night and passed through it?"

Draco scoffed. "Sure there is. Sure you did. My goodness, Snape sure has come up with something weird this time."

Smothering a temptation to yank out his hair, Harry said, "Malfoy. Snape did not create me. I'm real. Totally real. But whatever, you don't have to believe me about that. Just come with me to the bloody gate, won't you?"

"Why should I?"

"Why shouldn't you?" Harry shot back. "You've got nothing to lose, right? Doesn't it get boring, sitting in this garden for seven years?"

Something dark passed over Malfoy's face, leaving a nasty scowl.

"Alright," he bit out. "Fine. Show me the way, oh Golden Chosen One. It's not as if I have anything better to do."

"_Thank _you!" cried Harry as he stood up. He left the chocolate frog on the bench, forgotten, and made off in a random direction. He didn't really understand it, but he figured the gate must appear after walking a ways, no matter which way, since direction was basically void here.

"I still don't believe you," muttered Malfoy as they walked. "But it figures Snape would make you as Gryffindor as can be. Stupid and stubborn."

Harry strode along in front, wading through the flowers that caught at his feet making it feel like walking through snow. Malfoy trailed behind him, more kicking at the roses than anything else, and muttering the whole while. Not for the first time, or even the tenth, Harry wondered if Malfoy had truly gone mad. He supposed it made a certain amount of sense—being trapped in one place, even a place as beautiful as this, for that long had to have taken some kind of toll. And, now that he let his mind wander over it, Malfoy _was_ half Black and the Blacks always did have some madness, as Sirius had said…

"There it is! See? I told you it exists!" crowed Harry as they approached the stone gate. It looked just as it had the last time, standing innocuously amongst the roses.

Malfoy stopped short, freezing mid rant. His eyes roamed over the carved stone with a strange mixture of curiosity and horror.

"No," he said, and his voice was barely a whisper. It quickly grew stronger. "No, that-that can't be. It's impossible." He stumbled backwards, his breath coming quick and shallow.

"Malfoy?" said Harry, stepping towards him hesitantly. "Malfoy, it's alright. It's just a gate."

His eyes flickered to Harry's before darting back to the arch. He stared it down as if it were about to jump up and eat him.

Harry looked between the gate and the panicking Malfoy, trying to figure out what the problem was.

"It's okay, Malfoy. Draco. It's fine that you didn't find it before. Maybe you could only get to it with me here. It might have only appeared once I looked for it."

"No, no," said Malfoy. He looked to be shaking.

"But it's good now, right? Now we've found it. Now you can come back. C'mon." Harry made to go to the gate, but stopped in shock when Malfoy cried out.

"No, you don't understand," he said, frantic. "That—that gate can only be one thing. I know what it is."

"You… do?"

Malfoy nodded, frantic, but offered no explanation.

"Well I know what it is too. I've already gone through it once."

Harry received a horrified stare for that remark.

"You couldn't have," breathed Malfoy.

"I did. I walked through it and woke up in bed. No harm done."

"No, no, that's not—that isn't possible." His hair was falling out of the braid, and he yanked at it as if in desperation. "You—you're lying."

"I am not. I'm telling the truth." Harry would have been getting frustrated, if Malfoy's state of evident terror wasn't so horribly unnerving.

"Then you've been misinformed. Did Snape make a mistake? No, he couldn't have. Oh, god, he's doing it again, isn't he. Severus! Stop this, stop playing with me!"

Harry stood right in front of Malfoy and grabbed his arm; he flinched violently.

"Malfoy, Malfoy snap out of it. I'm really here. This isn't anything to do with Snape. Real, see?"

He seized Malfoy's other arm and brought his hand up to Harry's chest. He didn't care if he was being rough, as long as the message got across.

Malfoy froze, his hand resting directly over Harry's heart. In the sudden silence that followed, they both listened as Harry's quickly beating heart slowed. It's steadying rhythm seemed to calm Malfoy down, and after an indefinable time he slowly raised his eyes to Harry's. They stood that way for a while, under the gentle twinkling glow of the stars, their bare feet buried in roses.

Eventually, Harry relaxed his grip on Malfoy's wrist, slowly, and let their arms fall. "You alright?" he asked, keeping his voice soft. Malfoy nodded, without breaking eye contact. Harry nodded in return before taking a careful step back, towards the gate. They were only a couple feet away. "Now, I'll show you that it's perfectly harmless. You can stay right there and wait for me, ok?"

There was a frozen moment in which Malfoy hadn't yet absorbed his words, and Harry took another step backwards. But then Malfoy's eyes were widening in realization and horror, and he was reaching his arm out to stop Harry, his mouth opening in a warning, but Harry had already turned around, and a beat later he had walked through the gate and simply disappeared.

…

This time Harry awoke slowly, with a yawn and a stretch. A glance at his clock showed that it was seven o'clock. Brilliant, that was even earlier than he usually woke up. Now he had time for a shower and breakfast. He didn't really think about much of anything as he got ready; he was still functioning in a pleasant haze of well-rested-ness. So good was his mood, that he even tried to comb his hair after his shower. Of course, it would just stick up strand by strand as it dried, but hey, that didn't mean he shouldn't try, right?

So he still hadn't gotten Malfoy out of his garden. But he'd at least taken him to the gate, which was huge improvement, in his opinion. He was feeling confident, surely now it was only a matter of time before he convinced Malfoy to pass through the gate. Actually, if his luck was good, then hopefully he'd be able to convince the blond git tonight. Once he saw that Harry was right as rain after going through it, he'd have to admit that it lead to the real world.

"What's got you so chipper this morning?" asked Michelle as she handed him his mocha Frappuccino with a shot of cinnamon.

"Why, getting up early enough to see you of course," replied Harry with a wink. Her laugh followed him out the door of the coffee shop.

He sipped at his cup as he waited for the train, and contemplated what else he could do to reassure Malfoy of his realness. During his shifts he allowed his mind to concentrate on the patients, but later on, in the afternoon, he let himself ponder the dilemma some more as he walked into room 417W.

It was a shock, once more, to see Malfoy here like this. They were so incredibly different, this Malfoy and the Malfoy in Harry's dreams, that they almost seemed like two different people. Unlike yesterday, Harry made himself take his time in checking the monitor spells and renewing the stasis and drip charms. He sat down besides Malfoy's bed, and for a moment just watched him sleep.

Absently, he wondered if Malfoy had eaten the chocolate frog. This lead to him wondering if dream Malfoy ever ate anything at all. Was that why he was so thin—no, skeletal? But that was not his actually body. His body was right here, getting nutrient potions daily. Why was he still wasting away? It didn't make any sense… and nothing in Harry's training accounted for it. Well, one thing did, but could it actually be possible that Malfoy was fighting the potions, trying to die? Was the trap keeping him from dying as well, preserving his life? It was an unsettling thought, to be sure.

He got up and walked around the bed, wanting to shake such morbid thoughts from his mind. It was when he was double checking the drip charms that the idea came to him. How come he hadn't thought of it before? This was sure to convince Malfoy, now he just had to wait for his shift to end and wile away the time until it was socially acceptable to go to bed.

When he got home to his little flat, the first thing he did was go to the closet in the back of his room. He had to dig through a rather large pile of laundry before he got to his old school trunk. This was where he kept the little trinkets and memorabilia from the war and before, everything that was important to him.

It was with great care that he removed his invisibility cloak and shifted aside the bundles of letters collected over six summers. Something tightened in his chest as he carefully moved the shard of mirror that now reflected nothing but own face. He set it down beside him and turned back to the trunk. Nestled next to the side closest to him was the hawthorn wand he'd used to defeat Voldemort. Harry hadn't touched it since he dropped it in the trunk after fixing his own holly wand, but when he picked it up now it was still warm to the touch, and it still felt comfortable in his hand. For a moment he felt a spark of worry. If the wand still felt familiar in his hand, did that mean that it still considered Harry to be its master? Would it answer to Malfoy at all?

He shook his head. It didn't matter whether or not it worked for Malfoy, just so long as he saw it he'd know that Harry was real. Surely even this Snape that he kept muttering about wouldn't be able to replicate a wand. Hopefully.

After he'd secured the wand, Harry went about making himself dinner. Ron and Hermione couldn't eat with him every night—Ron had to work late hours at the Ministry most days and it was difficult for Hermione to come down from Hogwarts, especially now… But they made an effort to get together at least once or twice a week. They'd eaten dinner together yesterday and the day before, and thus Harry would be left on his own for the next five days. Which was fine with him, only, there really wasn't much one could do in a bachelor's flat. Harry quickly learned that when you're full of anticipation for something, the time passes like molasses and the things that you can come up with to do somehow dwindle down to practically nothing.

The telly was entertaining for about an hour, after which Harry picked up one of the books that Hermione was constantly lending him. He'd gotten halfway through the second chapter when he decided if he didn't stop he'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. Which probably would have been fine, but even though there was no one there Harry felt like there was just something inherently wrong and slightly embarrassing about going to bed before the sun even set. Even if it was summer and the sun set at nine.

At ten seventeen Harry deemed it late enough to retire, even if it made him feel slightly like he were fourteen all over again. Clutching Malfoy's wand and dressed in his nicest pajamas, Harry climbed into bed and tried to force all thoughts from his mind. Eventually, he fell into a deep sleep…

…

"Fucking hell you fucking piece of shite, fucking bloody—"

"Ow, ow, what the-?"

Harry opened his eyes to see Malfoy leaning over him, pounding his torso and pulling back his fist for a punch to the face.

"Woah, stop, what're you doing?" he cried, scrambling away from a Malfoy who had evidently cracked under the pressure and gone psychotic.

"What the bloody fuck does it _look _like I'm doing you sorry scrap of shit?"

"Uh, it looks like you're trying to kill me. And stop swearing, will you? Calm down!"

"I will not fucking _calm down_ you buggering tit!"

"Malfoy! I said stop swearing, Merlin! What the hell's the matter?"

"You're what's the matter, you buffle-headed cauliflower!"

"If you would just calm—wait what? What? Did you just call me a cauliflower?"

"You're such a bloody bastard! Why did you fucking _do _that? I thought you were fucking _dead_!"

Harry blinked. For the first time tonight, he actually looked at Malfoy.

He was sitting on his heels, robe crumpled beneath him, breathing deeply. Harry looked up and was taken aback. The previous two nights, Malfoy had looked pristine and almost perfect when Harry awoke in the garden. He'd looked like he belonged there, amongst the stars and roses. Tonight his hair was falling out of the braid, strands hanging in his face and over his shoulders. He looked pale, pasty even, and there were rings under his slightly red eyes.

"I believe you, alright?" he said, calmer but still with a choked overtone to his voice. "I believe that you're real. That fucking gate wouldn't have appeared for any other reason." His eyes flickered to the right briefly.

Harry looked around him. It was with surprise that he noted the change to the landscape. They were sitting in the flowers, the fountain and benches a couple feet to their right and the stone gate just a couple feet to their left. In light of Malfoy's strange terror, it looked slightly ominous, looming over them as it did. Just like everything else in the starlight, it didn't cast any shadow.

"It moved…" said Harry.

"No shit."

"But how—"

"Right after you fucking _walked through it_ I turned around and the fountain was right there. Never mind that, though," he waved his hand as if moving stone were a common occurrence. And who knows, maybe it was in this strange world. "What happened? You didn't die? Or," he paled even further, if that were possible, "Are you a different Potter? Did that one die and Snape sent me another one? Oh, fuck…"

"No, no, no," said Harry quickly, crawling back over to Malfoy. "I'm the same one. Same Harry. I've always been the same one, the real one. Here, I can prove it this time, see? Only I could have this, right?"

He handed Malfoy the wand that he'd kept in his hand throughout their little ordeal. For a moment, Malfoy just stared at it, as if he couldn't figure out what it was.

"It's your wand," explained Harry, helpfully.

"I can see that," snapped Malfoy, and he snatched it from Harry's hand.

Harry watched as Malfoy turned it over in his hands, and for the moment neither of them spoke. He thought he could understand what Malfoy was feeling. It was the same way he'd felt when he'd repaired his holly wand. To hold it in his hands, whole, after so long… it had been the most wonderful feeling. Like coming home. And he'd only lost his for a couple months, not to mention that he'd still been able to use Hermione's. It was clear by the way Malfoy's face lit up, the little crease between his eyebrows relaxing, that Harry'd done the right thing in bringing him his wand.

"I didn't think you'd ever give it back. I thought you probably forgot about it," said Malfoy, his voice quiet.

"It was in my school trunk," said Harry, smiling a little. He knew that that was all the thanks he would get.

"Well. Thank you."

Or not. Maybe seven years trapped in a garden was enough to soften a Malfoy. Harry was, quite frankly, shocked.

"Um. Wow. Er. You're welcome… I didn't think Malfoys did thank you's."

"Malfoy's don't. I do, sometimes. On rare occasions. Shut up."

"Oh. Okay."

They sat in silence for a while.

"Er," said Harry; he'd just remembered… "I'm not sure if it'll work for you." Malfoy looked up. "I mean, it was still pretty responsive to me; it might, you know, still be…ah… mine." It was quite awkward to say.

Malfoy stared at him for a moment, and Harry couldn't read anything in his expression. Then, with a swish and a flick, he said, "_wingardium leviosa!_" and a handful of roses swiftly rose into the air. Malfoy dropped his arm and they fell. He shot Harry a triumphant look.

"Alright, so it's yours again. That's good. Not sure how that worked, but… whatever."

There was a period, Harry couldn't tell how long in this timeless place, but it felt like maybe an hour, in which Malfoy performed small spells and Harry watched. Strangely, none of them stuck—conjured things quickly disappeared and transfigured things only stayed that way for a minute or two. Everything turned back into roses in the end.

It was peaceful. Maybe even nice. Neither of them made to get off the ground and go sit on one of the benches.

"Okay," said Harry an eternity later, breaking the silence. Malfoy looked up from the rose he'd transfigured into a small dove. "You believe me, right? That I'm real?" Malfoy nodded. "Then you believe me when I tell you the gate takes you back to the world of the living?"

Malfoy froze. In the silence that followed, the dove unraveled into a perfect rose.

"Come on," said Harry. He was getting a bit exasperated with this whole fear-of-gate business. "I've been through it twice. I know where it goes, and it's perfectly harmless."

"No, it's not. Just because it takes _you_ back doesn't mean it'll do the same for me."

"Oh now you're just being ridiculous. It's a gate! It takes you to one place; it doesn't discriminate based on who walks through it!"

"How do you know? It very well could!"

"Why're you being so stubborn? Just come through with me, I'll show you!"

"No! I think I'll stay right here, thank you very much."

Harry was getting seriously frustrated. Malfoy was just being so _difficult_! It was so simple; the gate was right there in front of them, and yet Malfoy refused to walk a couple steps to his freedom!

"Come _on_!" cried Harry. He grabbed Malfoy's wrist and tried to pull him towards the arch. "It's just right there! Don't you want to get free?"

"No! Let go of me, you bastard!"

"Stand up, come on! This shouldn't be difficult."

Harry managed to drag Malfoy a couple of steps. The git was digging his heels in, but a bunch of loose roses wasn't really the best thing for traction.

"Let go!" cried Malfoy, pushing at Harry's grip with his wand hand.

"I'm going to take you back whether you like it or not!"

"Stop it! I'm telling you I _can_'_t_!"

"I promised Dumbledore I'd do it—"

"I said—"

"And I'll do it if it's the last thing I—"

"LET GO! _Diffindo_!"

Suddenly time seemed to slow down and a great many things happened in quick succession.

Harry turned around to see Malfoy slash upwards with his wand, and then he was falling backwards because Harry was no longer dragging him forwards, rather what he held in his hand was Malfoy's severed forearm…

Malfoy stumbled but managed to stand, and, wand still in hand, gripped the top half of his left arm… the half that was still attached to his body. He was breathing harshly and Harry could only stare as blood flowed, the patter of its fall on the roses loud in his ears, the red of the drops in stark contrast with the white and black of this place…

As if shocked, Harry dropped the arm he still had in his hand in horror. But before it hit the ground, it burst into a dozen white roses which quickly joined their sisters and a moment later were indiscernible from the rest of the ground. Harry looked up, and a strange thing was happening—a flurry of white petals seemed to appear out of nowhere and coalesce beneath where Malfoy was clutching, then, in the blink of an eye, Malfoy's arm was whole again, silver bracelets and all. A glance to the ground showed that his blood was soaking into the white petals, until there was no evidence that any such violence had taken place.

The only thing that broke the profound silence after that was Malfoy's panting. Harry wasn't sure if he himself was breathing at all.

Then, "Wh-what?"

Harry's whispered voice betrayed how shaken he was. He tried to put more inflection in it. After the war… one severed arm was nothing, right? Especially when it mended itself so incredibly…

"What just happened?"

Instead of answering, Malfoy walked over to the fountain and sat down on a bench. When Harry had seen him the first time, he'd been sitting all straight and prim like someone'd strapped a board to his back. Now he was all tired curves and defensive slouching. He was still gripping his arm, his knuckles white.

"Does it hurt?" Harry asked softly as he made his way over and sat down besides Malfoy. The stone was cold and Harry was abruptly reminded of that time in the forest, when he'd asked Sirius the same question…

"Of course it fucking hurts, you cank merry-begotten."

Harry blinked. "I don't understand your insults," he said, a bit weakly.

"Yeah, well, that's because you're buffle-headed."

"Er, right."

They sat in silence as Malfoy slowed his breathing and relaxed his grip on his arm. Harry didn't want to break the calm they'd fallen into—all of these sudden mood changes gave him whiplash—but he had to ask.

"What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not _afraid_," was Malfoy's reply, but he didn't look at Harry. His eyes were trained on his lap, where his hands were fiddling with a ring.

"Alright, so you're not afraid. Then why don't you want to go through the gate?"

"I _told _you. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it'll work for me."

"Yeah, you said that. You also said you thought I'd died. Is that… I mean, what do you think will happen if you go through the gate?"

"I'll die. And I don't think that, I know it."

"How?"

"I—Snape told me."

"Really. Snape told you, so you just believe him? What, are you suddenly partaking in blind Gryffindor trust?"

"No, I told you, he can't lie."

"Okay, sure. When did he tell you this? You keep talking about Snape, but I still haven't seen him."

"He told me… when I first came here. And you have seen him, I think."

"Alright, I may have seen him," said Harry, who didn't particularly want to argue with Malfoy's insanity this time. "What did he say? Actually, I'm curious. What happened, when you first got here?"

"I… I hit my head. I was on my way to the kitchen, I think, and I just tripped and hit my head on the door jam. That's all I remember… everything went black, and then I was here…"

…

_He lay curled into a ball on his side. That was all he knew at first, just the strangely soft ground beneath the right side of his body. Slowly, slowly, he became aware of his limbs. As this happened, he realized with a start what he was wearing. The silver bands on his wrists and ankles, the hoops in his ears, they were familiar though he'd never worn them before, only admired. It was only when he gasped that he realized he could breath._

_He was wearing his funeral robes._

_For a moment he lay there, his body tense, and wondered if that meant he was dead. If he was dead… then where was this? Why did he still have a sense of his body? He opened the eyes he'd just discovered to find himself immersed in a dense blackness. It was dark as pitch, and as he sat up slowly he found that although he could feel his arms and legs, he could not see his hand in front of his face. It was a long time that he sat there before he began to grow afraid. But just as soon as the feeling appeared in him, sparks of light began blooming in the darkness. Then, in a matter of minutes, the sky—he knew it to be the sky because it was only the space above him—erupted in a veritable sea of softly twinkling stars._

_After a long while, Draco found himself wondering what it was he was sitting on. Just as soon as the curiosity appeared, the ground began to unfurl into billions of white roses, stretching as far as he could see—an ocean of flowers, blushing milky silver in the stars' light. _

_It was strange, he thought as he picked up a rose, all of the roses were cut…_

_Again, the question of where he was emerged in his mind._

"_You tell me," came a cold drawl from behind him._

_Draco turned around, and saw Severus Snape sitting on a stone bench besides a familiar stone fountain filled with roses…_

_Snape looked just as he had before the final battle… how Draco had known him in the many safe houses they'd shared. He had the same sallow skin, the same crooked nose and unpleasantly black hair that fell in sticky waves to just above his shoulders. He was even wearing the same stifling black robes he used to wear, only somehow now they looked not to be made of cloth but of pure shadow, circling over his wrists and up his neck…_

"_What—but you're dead," said Draco._

"_An astute observation, __Draco__, but an incorrect one. I assure you that I am not dead," said Snape. He patted the stone beside him. "Come, sit with me. I'm sure there is much you wish to ask."_

_Draco stood slowly and walked over. The roses seemed to catch at his feet… it was like walking through a thick mud, mud that felt like satin against his skin. He didn't sit next to Snape, but rather took the other bench._

"_Then you're alive?" Draco felt the question was rather redundant—Severus had just told him he wasn't dead, so then he must be alive—but he felt compelled to ask it in any case. He thought that if anything warranted redundant confirmation, then this was it._

"_I would not say so, no." Snape smiled, and it was a wholly unpleasant thing to see._

"_Wha—"_

"_You were wondering where we are, I believe? I admit that I'm rather curious myself. What would you say, Draco?"_

_He looked around again. The fountain and benches were familiar, as were the roses, although generally they were attached to rose bushes._

"_It… it sort of looks like my mother's rose garden, but water flows in her fountain and the roses don't cover the ground."_

"_Narcissa's rose garden, really? Well I suppose I should have expected that. You always were quite the mother's boy."_

"_Well where do _you_ think we are?" Draco said, his voice icy._

"_I haven't the slightest. This is your world, after all."_

"_What does that mean? What the hell are you playing at, Snape? How can you be not dead or alive?"_

"_Welcome," said Snape suddenly, inexplicably. He spread out his arms, gesturing to the expanse of night and flowers that surrounded them. "This is your world, your entire world from now until forever."_

_Draco scowled. Snape kept evading the question. Well no matter, Draco had other questions._

"_And what is this world, exactly?"_

"_I believe you said it was your mother's rose garden."_

_Snape smirked. It was unnerving… Severus was making many expressions that Draco had never seen cross his face before._

"_Don't be obtuse. Answer the question."_

"_This is a world, wholly removed from any other. A miniature bubble, if you will, existing on a plane all of its own, somewhere between the world you come from and the land beyond."_

"_The land beyond? You mean the land of the dead?"_

"_You could put it that way, yes."_

"_So… am I dead?"_

"_Not yet, no."_

"_Not yet. Why the hell am I here?"_

"_Hmm," said Snape, as if he were seriously pondering the question. "I suppose, because I want you to be."_

_Draco stared at him. There was something wrong… something off._

"_Well then, how long am I supposed to stay here?"_

"_As long as you wish."_

_Snape's cryptic answers were seriously beginning to grate on Draco's nerves. Well, at least one thing hadn't changed._

"_So I can leave whenever I want?"_

"_In a manner of speaking…"_

"_Explain. Is there an exit, or isn't there?"_

"_There is no exit, no."_

"_So I'm trapped."_

"_That is correct. You are imprisoned here, and will be forever, unless the exit appears."_

"_What? So there is a way out?"_

"_Not at the moment, no. But there is a possibility that a gate will appear…"_

"_Okay, so… what, there is a way out? It'll… appear?"_

"_That depends on your decision."_

"_My decision? What decision?"_

_Snape stared at him, his black eyes unreadable. Draco stared back, defiantly._

"_You have a choice, and your choice will determine whether or not the gate appears for you," said Snape, his voice bearing a strange weight as if it were a tangible thing. "You may decide to stay here… or you may decide to move on."_

"_Move on as in what, leave? Go back?"_

"_Move on as in die."_

_Draco stared at Snape in the silence that followed. Snape seemed to be contemplating the fountain with a strange curiosity._

"_The fuck kind of a choice is that? That's not a choice at all. You're saying I'm trapped here."_

_Snape shrugged. "If you wish to view it that way, then be my guest."_

"_What? How the bloody hell am I _supposed_ to view it?"_

"_Whichever way pleases you. I do not wish to make you suffer," and Snape looked at Draco then, with a certain sincerity that was previously absent. "I've given you this beautiful world, a world exactly as you would have it. As I said, you may stay here, but I don't force you to. You do have a choice, Draco."_

"_The hell I have a choice! The choice to die is no choice at all!"_

"_There are worse things than dying."_

"_Yeah, sure there are, but no one actually wants to die."_

_Snape turned back to look at the fountain. From his position, the statue was in profile. He seemed fascinated by the curve of the girl's neck, where her hair parted on either side of her shoulder. Her head was bowed; she was gazing at the path water would take, were it to fall from the gourd to the stone well, but there was nothing there; her gourd was filled with roses._

"_This… is true; no one wants to die. But there are some, some, who are content to."_

_Draco, of course, thought of Harry Potter. He remembered that day, in the smoke and dust covering the Great Hall, when Potter had boasted about his great and noble sacrifice—how he'd gone to his death willingly and all. Of course, he'd proceeded to goad and taunt the Dark Lord, his ridiculous monologue about love and loyalties giving the snake-faced bastard the time to escape. _

_Scowling, what Draco said was, "What, like you? Content to die to join your long lost love?" He sneered contemptuously. "Yeah, Potter told the whole world what you showed him. And why did you show him your tear-jerking childhood?" Draco leaned towards Snape, resting his elbows on his knees. "So that he could understand? So that you could die a hero? You were already sacrificing yourself for the greater good, so what, it was because you wanted people to feel sorry for you? I hate to break it to you, but the general opinion is still that you're a greasy old bat."_

_Snape gazed at him impassively. Draco suppressed the urge to punch him. Content to die. What a load of complete bullshit. No one was content to die; it went against the most primal survival instinct. And Draco was fucking trapped._

_Snape turned back to the statue. "I've said my part. I believe that is all that is necessary, for now."_

_He seemed suddenly absorbed in something over Draco's shoulder. Instinctively, Draco turned to see what it was, but there was nothing other than the endless field of roses and sea of stars. Confused, he turned back to ask Snape what the hell he was playing at, only to find that Snape was gone. _

…

"After that, I tried running as far as I could, but I quickly learned that Snape was right, there was no escape. No matter how long I ran, whenever I looked back I was right where I started, at the fountain."

Malfoy'd stopped fiddling with his jewelry a while back. Now he was just staring down at his hands in his lap, looking rather bored with the whole thing.

"So you see," he continued, "Snape told me. He told me specifically that the only way out leads to death, and I know for a fact that he never lies."

"But…" said Harry into the silence that followed. "But then how come I can come and go?"

Malfoy shrugged. "I haven't the slightest. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that you aren't here because he wants you to be. Maybe the gate that you found is a different gate then the one Snape said I would find. But I'm not going to take that chance, so don't try to force me… Maybe it's because you're not in a coma. Maybe it's because you're the Chosen One. I don't know."

Harry felt at a loss with all of this. If Malfoy's story was true, then it definitely did sound as though Malfoy was well and truly trapped. Perhaps Dumbledore was mistaken? Harry couldn't believe that. But for some reason neither did he think that Malfoy was lying about any of it. After all, what reason would he have to lie? There had to have been some kind of mistake. The question was, what could Harry do about it all?

He didn't know. This wasn't the sort of problem he was used to dealing with. Harry may have been the savior of the wizarding world, but knowing how to fight bad guys wasn't about to help him in this situation. He had to think about it, think well and thoroughly, but he'd never been very cerebral and he felt like he was just thinking in circles.

Malfoy didn't offer any opinions on the matter as they sat there, Harry frying his brain in concentration. He glared at his companion for a moment. Why wasn't he thinking? Why wasn't he trying to take more action? How could he just sit there, idly taking up his wand and transfiguring roses into little lines of paper cranes?

Harry turned his glare on the rows of origami birds, watching in frustration as they unfurled back into roses one by one in order of which ones were transfigured first. He sat and thought and observed bird after bird turn back into rose, and then shifted his gaze back to Malfoy. He had on an expression of vague concentration, as if he were practicing a new spell and had to focus to get it just right, even though the transfiguration was a simple one they'd learned in second year. When Harry saw this, his frustration didn't disappear, but it seemed to make room for another feeling, a rather sad feeling that bloomed as Malfoy absently tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear.

How long does it take for one to lose hope?

Harry was just thinking, _seven years… _when the world slanted and blurred. Malfoy was staring at him, eyes slightly widened in a vague surprise, and then Harry was blinking awake, accompanied by the beep beeping of his alarm clock, welcoming him back to the real world.


	3. Chapter 3

III

"When he shall die,  
Take him and cut him out in little stars,  
And he will make the face of heaven so fine  
That all the world will be in love with night  
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

"And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves."

-Walt Whitman, Song of myself (6)

"Sir…" said Harry, carefully picking out which words he wished to use next.

The sense of urgency that had accompanied him for the past two days and nights had died a quiet death sometime after Malfoy'd told his story. His desire to help save Malfoy hadn't waned, but he realized that it would be much more difficult than he'd thought at first. He was perfectly happy to spend however long it would take to get Malfoy comfortable enough to leave on his own. It wasn't as if he had any prior engagements for his dreams. But if he was going to invest in this, Harry had to be sure that he was doing the right thing.

Professor Dumbledore sat on the bench beside him, staring contemplatively into the slowly shifting mist. They'd opted not to walk this evening. As they sat, Harry studied the bench beneath them. It was very different than the benches in Malfoy's world; for one thing this one was white metal instead of grey stone, though that didn't make it any less elegant. Harry briefly wondered if there was _anything_ vaguely unappealing in these worlds, and then he remembered the… thing that used to be there. He suppressed a sudden urge to check underneath the bench, and instead turned to address Dumbledore.

"Sir, I'm having some… trouble with Malfoy."

"Yes, I thought you might," said Dumbledore. He gazed at Harry over his half-moon spectacles, and though he smiled his eyes were sad. "I must apologize for that, my dear boy. You have done a great deal already, and yet I must continue to ask more of you."

Harry examined his hands in his lap. His fingernails were perfectly cut and clean, unlike in reality.

"It's alright, really," he said, and meant it. "I mean, I know you say that you're putting this burden on me and all, but really it's… I guess I'm used to it? Or rather, I want to do it—to help."

"I know, Harry." A small twinkle returned to his eyes "That is why we are here."

"Uh…" said Harry, now slightly confused.

"Please. Do not deny me my regret over this. Whether or not you are happy to do me this favor now, the fact is you shouldn't have to." He looked towards the tracks. "You… I don't think you understand how rare one such as yourself is. Truly, you have done more than enough for me."

"But—I beg your pardon, sir, but it isn't as if I'm doing this for you exactly, is it? I mean, it's not your fault Malfoy's been trapped and is too stupid to get out himself."

Dumbledore turned back to Harry and smiled gently, but said nothing.

"I believe you had questions for me," said Dumbledore a moment later.

"Oh, right. Er, well you see, I was talking with Malfoy, and he said that Snape had told him that the only way out leads to death. I'm not doubting you or anything, sir, but perhaps you were mistaken? Are you sure that Malfoy will come back if he goes through the gate?"

"He said that Snape told him that, did he?" The twinkle was back, full force. "Well, my dear boy, I can assure you that I am not mistaken. Young Draco will indeed return to the living world if he passes through the gate."

"Okay," said Harry nervously, "I'm just making sure, because you know Malfoy was so convinced that he would die if he went through the gate. You should have seen him, Professor. I don't think there's any way I can get him through it besides brute force, but I tried that and he cut his arm off! I guess I'm just not sure what I should do."

"Hmm," said Dumbledore, petting his silver beard. It was a strange gesture, one Harry couldn't remember having seen before in real life… "I told you before that it would not be an easy feat, and I hold by that. However, it is indeed very possible." He smiled at Harry thoughtfully and perhaps he saw the slight doubt that Harry still held, for he continued, "Harry, I do hope that you have not lost your confidence in me," his eyes shone then with a strange sort of earnestness, an almost juvenile vulnerability. "I know that information has been withheld from you in the past, and I must admit that even now there are things that I have omitted—"

"What-?"

Dumledore held up a hand to stem his sudden inquiry. "—but I have not lied to you, believe me. Perhaps it would help if I made a small confession; I cannot lie to you."

And suddenly Harry knew this to be true. He knew it to be true on a fundamental plane—it wasn't that Dumbledore chose to be honest, although Harry had no doubt that he would have anyway; it was that the Dumbledore that stood before him now could not lie any more than an apple could refuse to fall to the earth.

This revelation appeared subtly in his head, but not in any way suspiciously. It wasn't as though anyone had tampered with his mind magically, but rather as though he'd learnt a new arithmancy theory that intuitively made sense. With that one sentence, all of Harry's doubt was assuaged.

"I see," said Harry. Dumbledore nodded kindly. "But… even if the gate will definitely lead him back, how do I get him to go through it? I think I'd rather not try brute force again…"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you the answer to that," said Dumbledore with remorse. Harry would have scowled, but he could see that Dumbledore wasn't done. "I cannot tell you because I do not know myself."

"Oh," said Harry. "Is that why you need my help then?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "You've been mistaken, my dear boy. I am in no way in need of your help."

"What? But… but then why did you bring me here? Oh, you mean you don't need my help, Malfoy does, right?"

"I did not bring you here," said Dumbledore cryptically. This time Harry really did scowl. "Or perhaps it would be more prudent to say that it was not my need or desire that brought you here." He held up a hand as Harry'd opened his mouth to interject. "Ah, and neither was it Mr. Malfoy's need or desire. I believe I have already told you, Harry, but I'll tell you again. _You _are the only reason why you are here. It was your desire that brought you to me, make no mistake about that."

"O…kay," said Harry, his head feeling a bit fuzzy. "Either way, it all comes down to me helping Malfoy, right?"

Dumbledore smiled and said, "You have reached the heart of the matter, yes."

"But if you don't know how, and I don't know how, how do you know that it's even possible?"

For a moment, Dumbledore seemed to be almost stuck. Harry stared in wonder.

"Hmm," said the old headmaster, combing long fingers through his beard. "This matter… is a complicated one. It has always been possible that Malfoy could have a method of escape, but then again it has also always been possible for Malfoy to have no way to escape. The difference, I suppose, is how much of a difference you will make."

"Me? Wait, but if you're saying that he could escape, and he could be trapped—that is what you're saying, isn't it?—then why'd you tell me that there was a sure fire way for him to leave? What you're saying now contradicts that! So you don't really know?"

"No that's not quite right either. I said that there was always the _possibility _for it to go either way. Now, though, I know definitively that Draco will be able to leave."

Harry just stared at him for a moment, feeling the urge to tug his hair out.

"Okay, _how_?"

"Well that is simple enough to deduce my dear boy." Harry met Dumbledore's twinkle with a glare, refusing to answer. "Simply because I was able to say it."

Harry blinked. What?

"I'm sure I told you just now, I cannot lie. Therefore, whatever I say must be the truth. Until the moment you asked me, I did not know whether or not dear Draco would be able to leave through the door as you can. I attempted to say that he would be able to, and since I was able to say it, it must be true."

"Right," said Harry, rubbing his eyes. "Okay. Sure. Well I got my question cleared up so I think I'll just nip it over to Malfoy's now, alright? Unless you have any other wise insight. Do you have a hunch or something? Some idea about what I should do?"

"I would advise against any more violence," said Dumbledore after a moment. He spoke the words as though he were trying them out, tasting them in his mouth.

"I suppose now that you said that it's true, right? Yeah okay well I wasn't going to attack him anyways so thanks for that."

Inclining his head, Dumbledore said, "You're welcome, of course."

"Well I guess I'll see you later then."

As the fog slowly began swirling into existence, Dumbledore stared at Harry almost calculatingly. Harry didn't meet his eyes.

…

"It's July."

Harry turned his head slightly to look at Malfoy. They were lying in the roses, and it had been silent until Malfoy's random remark. It wasn't a tense silence, but a fairly pleasant one. The air was cool and always fresh and Harry felt no pressure to wrack his brains trying to figure out how to get Malfoy to leave. If he couldn't figure anything out so far then it probably wouldn't occur to him no matter how hard he thought. He might as well take his time; perhaps if Malfoy learned to trust him… but that would take ages, wouldn't it?

The arch was once again nowhere in sight.

"Actually, it's October," said Harry, turning back to face the sky.

"No, it's July. Here, it's July. It's always July. Probably towards the beginning of July."

"Alright, so it's July," said Harry, shrugging, which was kind of awkward lying down.

Malfoy scowled and kept his eyes on the stars. "I'm not crazy," he said.

"I never said you were," said Harry, thinking that Malfoy was probably crazy.

"You definitely did. Earlier. You were thinking it just now."

Harry grinned. "Alright so maybe I did. Was."

Malfoy sighed exasperatedly. "I know it's July because of the stars, you nitwit."

"The stars?"

Harry could almost hear Malfoy rolling his eyes.

"Don't you remember anything from Hogwarts?"

"Of course I do!"

"Well do you remember that class we took, up on a tower? We used telescopes and looked at stars. Do you remember that?"

Now Harry was scowling. The image of the astronomy tower had come to mind.

"A-anyways," said Malfoy hastily, apparently having made the same connection. "I know it's July because of the constellations that are visible."

"Oh," said Harry. "Okay, so it's July. Why's it July?"

He wracked his brains, trying to come up with a significance for the month July. Of course, the obvious one was that it was his birthday, but that was at the end of the month and Malfoy'd said it was towards the beginning… besides, Harry's birthday wouldn't have any impact on Malfoy's world anyway.

"I don't know," answered Malfoy, more musing to the air than to Harry. "I would have thought it would be June or something. There's probably no reason, anyways."

They lay in silence for some time more. This world was quiet, and Harry felt the gentle twinkling of the stars to be oddly comforting. They were infinitely far away; this sky seemed somehow much larger than any sky Harry'd seen on Earth. Yet their distant winking seemed somehow to be gently observing. Harry was vaguely reminded of Dumbledore—his eyes twinkled as well—but while he'd always felt safe under the headmaster's gaze, the stars' twinkling was more… innocent in a way. It was harmless, and sweet, and endearing. Harry felt that if he listened closely enough, he'd be able to hear the soft susurrus of their conspiring whispers.

"Did you say that these stars are the same as the ones on Earth?" asked Harry some time later.

"Hmm," responded Malfoy. He seemed to come back from some daydream or doze and said, "I suppose they are."

Harry raised an eyebrow, even though Malfoy wouldn't have been able to see it. Evidently something in his silence implied it for Malfoy continued, "I can identify these stars, but they seem more… alive. Or perhaps that's just because I've been gazing at them for so long; they're very familiar to me now."

"I think I get it," said Harry. Then, for the sake of leisurely conversation, "What stars do you recognize?"

Malfoy shifted closer to Harry so that their shoulders were almost touching then lifted his arm to point. "Those stars there? That's Draco."

Harry couldn't help but look at Malfoy's bare arm. The skin was pale and unbroken; there was no evidence whatsoever of what had transpired the other night.

"What?" he said, lifting his eyes to the part of the sky Malfoy was pointing at.

Malfoy scowled. "See that line of stars? That's the constellation Draco, the dragon."

"Er," said Harry.

"There're four bright stars there, and then it goes down and then up again, see?"

"Er," said Harry.

Malfoy was gesturing with his hand, tilting his head to try and see from Harry's angle, and grumbling about how incompetent Harry was. Harry strained his eyes, but really the stars just looked like a bunch of stars. Whoever came up with these constellations anyways? Must've been people with even more time to spend staring at the night sky than Malfoy.

And then suddenly, he saw it. Well, he thought he saw it.

"Is it that sort of wonky shape? There?"

"Yes, finally. Goodness, how you ever managed to pass astronomy will forever be beyond me," replied Malfoy, but Harry could hear the smile he was trying to keep from his lips.

"It doesn't look much like a dragon," said Harry, grinning. "It's sort of wimpy looking, really… Ow!" He rubbed his arm, affecting a kicked-puppy expression and turning to the stupid git next to him. Malfoy was gazing at the stars, the picture of innocence. Muttering about poncy twats, Harry turned back to the sky. Now that he knew what it looked like, Draco actually was pretty easy to find. He imagined that the stars were shining extra brightly, eager to help him out.

"I always thought Draco was a really strange name," remarked Harry after a while.

Malfoy sniffed. "It's a very distinguished name, I'll have you know."

"Hmm... I'm sure it is."

The silence after that was tentatively peaceful, as though something had transpired, sometime in the course of their conversation. Or perhaps it happened gradually over the past few nights. Whenever it happened, it had left them somehow as timid equals. and now, he felt that their past dropped away—they hadn't forgotten it, but it had shrunken in significance in the face of their more recent interactions. It left Harry with a strangely bare feeling, and he could almost feel the vulnerability coming from Draco.

"Do you see that star there? The really bright one." His voice was soft, hesitant but determined.

"That one?" Harry pointed.

"Yes. That's the brightest star in the sky."

Harry stared at it. The light that dripped from it was indeed somehow stronger, more fiery than the others.

"What's it called?" asked Harry.

Draco was silent for a moment, not in hesitation but in deliberation. Then he said, simply, "Sirius."

"Ah…" was all Harry said in response.

He drifted in his thoughts for what seemed like a long time. Draco didn't disturb his distraction, and Harry thought it might have been out of respect.

"Were all of the Blacks named after constellations?"

"No," answered Draco, and then when it seemed clear that Harry expected him to elaborate, "My mother. Narcissa is a flower, not a star."

"I see," said Harry. It was his turn to allow silence to show his respect.

Draco sighed when the silence began to grow tense. "I suppose you're wondering why—"

"Well I mean, you don't have to tell me obviously. But I am curious."

He turned his head away so that Harry could only see shimmering strands of hair, not quite as white as the roses it curled around. When he spoke, his voice was slightly subdued by the petals.

"There was something of a scandal surrounding my mother's birth," he said. "As I'm sure you know, the Black family is notorious for having hair that is, well, black. My grandmother, Druella, was a natural blond as she'd married into the family, but the genes of Cygnus's black hair should have been dominant. When my mother was born blond, there was a large controversy—people thought that perhaps she wasn't truly a Black."

"Isn't there like a spell or something to see if he was the father?"

"There's a paternity potion, yes, but by the time it was brewed and administered, my mother had already been named. The naming falls on the father in the Black family, and Cygnus had named her Narcissa out of spite."

"Ok… but why Narcissa?"

"Don't you know the story of Narcissus?" asked Draco.

Harry shook his head, then realizing Draco couldn't see him from his angle, said, "Uh, no."

"Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology. He was renowned for his beauty and, long story short, he saw himself in a pool of water, fell in love with his reflection, and unable to leave the sight of it, died."

"Hmm," said Harry, thinking about how strange Greek myths were. "Why'd your grandfather name her that?"

"I don't know," replied Draco musingly. "Narcissus was famously blond…"

"So he named her that just because of her hair colour?"

"Maybe. Her hair colour was a big deal. Or maybe he was being spitefully ironic. Narcissus loved his reflection but my mother hated hers for most of her life, at least until she married my father. As a Black, she was ashamed of her blond hair even while she pretended to be haughtily proud of it. I guess she always felt like a bit of an outsider in a family where black was the only acceptable colour."

"She was a Black though, right? They did the paternity test?"

Draco glanced at him. "Yes, they did the paternity test. But even if she was genetically a Black, the damage was done. Her hair was blond and her name alone set her apart. It wasn't just her, though; I think their whole family was a bit fractured."

"Yeah, Andromeda was kicked out, right?"

"Yes, she never really fit in. When she ran off with that muggle they finally had the excuse to disown her once and for all." He paused, for a moment simply watching the stars twinkle. The fact that a certain other constellation wasn't there was… not comforting exactly, but Draco knew that the sky would be a lot less peaceable to him if it were there. "I suppose my aunt Bella tried to compensate for them. She was the perfect Black daughter: black hair, infatuated with the dark arts, and certifiably insane. I'm sure grandmother Druella wished her other daughters were just as perfect instead of a couple of little outcasts."

Draco sat up, crossing his legs and resting his forearms on his knees. The line of his back was a curve, and his braid hung down over his shoulder. Harry watched him for a moment. From his position on the ground, his hands behind his head, he couldn't see Draco's face.

"I suppose," thought Harry aloud a couple moments later. "I suppose most pureblood families were quite a bit dysfunctional. I mean, from what I've heard, Sirius's family was awful… The Weasleys are great but they don't really count."

"My family wasn't," said Draco quietly. He sighed deeply and rubbed a rose petal between his fingers. "Both my mother and father were fiercely dedicated to the family. In the end, it was always family first."

"I know," said Harry, his voice equally soft. His eyes were once more on the constellations, but in his peripheral vision he saw Draco turn to him slightly, his head cocked. "Your mother…" he continued, "If… if my mom was still alive, I'm sure she would be like your mom, in a way."

"Really."

"I mean, not in all the stupid ways like spoiling me and being an ice queen all the time," said Harry, waving his hand. "But I'd like to think—no, I know that she would love me just as much as your mother loves you." Automatically, Harry's hand began to move up to his scar. With a bit of a conscious effort, he set it back down.

Harry'd never thought about it before, not even on those nights with Hermione where they'd sat outside the tent and stared at the stars, and Harry had known that Hermione was wondering whether Ron was looking at the same stars, and Harry had wondered along with her. Even then he'd never noticed the circling of the stars, but now that they were hanging immobile it seemed to jump out at him. There was something wrong here: the world was caught in a moment, and it was as though the stars were little bits of cotton fluff that had flown into a spider's web and would never reach their destination; never reach the ground they so unconsciously longed for.

"It was Snape who told me," said Draco, breaking the silence. Harry knew immediately what he was talking about and waited for him to go on. "A week after it happened, he came to the safe house. Of course he was very cold about it; he simply told me that she was dead, no more and no less. I knew that I would get no comfort from him, and I didn't seek it." He smiled bitterly. "I hated him, so much. Just because he was the one to bear the news. Having to live in the same house with him for two years was torture." He barked out a short little laugh. "I was such a child then. Did you know? I used to try to sabotage his potions." Shaking his head, he brushed a strand of hair back and continued, "I craved the days when he would leave on missions. Even if there were the possibility of him getting killed, at least he wasn't with me, clogging up the air."

Harry turned his head to look at Malfoy for a moment. The starlight caressed his face gently, making it appear paler than it truly was. Or maybe it really was that pale; how would Harry know, if he would never see this Malfoy under any light other than starlight?

"You don't really sound like you hate him now, though," Harry observed, someone tentatively. He was still wary of Malfoy's strange moods.

Malfoy sighed and glanced at Harry, his barely visible eyebrows slightly furrowed. He uncrossed his legs, opting to bend his legs at the knees and rest his feet on the ground. He folded his arms over his chest, holding his forearms in a pose that was reminiscent of a self-hug and said, "I suppose I don't hate him now, not particularly."

"Even though he's trapped you here?" Harry left the _for seven years_ unsaid.

"That's different." It was said simply and dismissively. If Malfoy weren't maintaining his defensive stance, he may very well have waved a hand in some vague way. Harry could imagine it clearly, and since when was Harry so good at imagining Malfoy's reactions? He mentally shook himself and turned his ears back to listening. Malfoy went on. "I've… had a lot of time to think. And in hindsight, I see things that I didn't see before."

"Like what?"

Malfoy took a moment, as though he'd never put these thoughts into words before, and he was now testing them out mentally, tasting how they would sound before releasing them into the air. And of course, he hadn't expressed his thoughts aloud. Not in seven years, except, Harry supposed, to the Snape he mentioned. But from what he'd heard, that wasn't often, and for the most part Draco had spent his time alone. Harry thought it would be difficult for anything to feel oppressive under this hugely vast sky, but he supposed the silence may have achieved it, after a few years. Again, he glanced at Draco, trying to suppress the feeling that was slowly filling his throat; it felt suspiciously like pity, but somehow more gentle, more sad.

"He wasn't cold at all," was what he said, finally. "I knew him so well, my dear Severus. I suppose we were friends, weren't we? We'd grown close, over my Hogwarts years and especially the short time afterwards. But I guess I was blinded by grief, and the only way I knew to release it was through hatred, directed at the closest thing at hand." He sounded as though he were grieving now, or in the aftermath of grief. He spoke with a sad remembrance. "He could so easily have sent me an owl, the moment he learned of it. I believe that would have been worse, and he knew it. No, he chose to wait until he could see me in person. I did not expect comfort, but a part of me longed for it, I think, and I resented him for not giving it to me. Now, though, I see that in a way he did comfort me. He stayed with me, at least, and while at the time I thought it horribly annoying, now I realize that being alone during that time would have been infinitely worse. He stayed with me, and when I got hurt he treated my wounds, and when I got sick he brewed potions, all in silence while I hated him with every fibre of my being."

"I…I learned a thing or two about Slytherins during the war," replied Harry, eventually. "Things that I never wanted to know about them. What do you do when the lines so neatly laid out for you get blurred? If… if a Slytherin could be so devoted to a love already lost, if he could, despite how nasty and horrible he seemed, be brave in the end, brave and good… and if a Slytherin could go against Voldemort and in one decisive moment change the fate of the whole war, simply for the love of her son… well then that means that some Slytherins are good, right? It isn't so black and white, is it?"

"Of course not," said Malfoy. "Did you honestly believe that all Slytherins were evil?"

Harry nodded. "It was easy to think that way, after all, from what I'd seen, all Slytherins _were_ evil. Or at least that's what I thought. But I know that there's a difference between the evil of taking points unfairly and the evil of murdering people. I must have seen it back then, too. Obviously, the bullying of you and your cronies was nowhere near the things I'd seen Voldemort do. But… you were all on the same side of the spectrum, and so in my mind you were all on the same side."

"But that's so… so narrow minded." Malfoy sounded disgusted. "I realize how hypocritical that sounds," he said quickly, as if to cut off whatever Harry was about to interject with. Harry blinked; he hadn't been about to say anything. "But weren't you guys supposed to be the open minded ones? The ones that accepted anybody?"

"Yes, that's what we were supposed to be. But we were restricted by the same thing the other side was, I suppose. I've learned that…" He took a moment to choose his words. "People have a desire for the world to be simple. They search for patterns in everything, because they like and crave order and easy categorization. So when they extend their labelling to people, they always oversimplify. People are complicated and trying to label them is a messy business best left alone."

"_The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple,_" said Malfoy. Harry looked at him questioningly. "A man once said that," said Malfoy in answer to the unvoiced question.

"He phrases it much more eloquently than I did," said Harry with a smile. He let it fade and continued, "But sometimes, acknowledging that truth is impossibly difficult… especially in war time. You accused me of letting Voldemort escape by boasting too much, right? Well perhaps I was hesitating. By that time two people that I'd thought were definitely evil had showed extreme bravery and goodness. If things weren't so black and white, then what if Voldemort wasn't so black and white either? Did I really have the right to kill him?"

"Of course you did," replied Malfoy easily. He blinked at Harry as if he didn't understand the question. Or rather, as if he was surprised that Harry would even ask such an easy question. "He'd killed countless people, including your parents. He was planning on killing millions more—you had to kill him; he had to be stopped."

"Yes, of course he had to be stopped, but kill him? What right did I have to decide that? I was only seventeen, Malfoy. Back then I had no idea what I should do. Even if I had to make the decision now, I'm not sure how I would act. No one has the right to play god with people's lives."

Malfoy was silent for a moment. It suddenly struck Harry what he might be thinking: that someone was playing god with his life right now.

"You're being awfully selfish about this," Malfoy barked suddenly. Harry blinked, bewildered by the sudden heat in his words.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You waffled because of your own dithering moral compass. You're completely right. No one has the right to play god with people's lives, but that's exactly what you did, isn't it!"

"What the hell?"

"Oh, honestly, don't tell me you haven't thought of it before. Your hesitation, hesitation because you were afraid of your little conscience, 'oh I can't kill Voldemort, what if that's _wrong_? Then I'll feel guilty about it, well we can't have that.' That indecisiveness caused the loss of even more lives!"

"What are you accusing me of?" said Harry, his voice low. He sat up abrubtly.

"I'm not—I'm not accusing you of anything." Malfoy lowered his voice again. "I'm just trying to make a point."

"Then make it."

Malfoy shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore. Never mind." Perhaps he'd sensed the dangerous route this conversation was taking; perhaps he could hear the emotion lacing Harry's voice.

"No, you can't do that—that bringing it up and then forcing it to be dropped. That's incredibly rude. Make your point; I want to hear it."

Malfoy took a deep breath, as if to brace himself, and wrapped his arms around his knees. "Sometimes… sometimes, I guess, you have to set your own conscience aside for a time… Sometimes you have to sacrifice your own peace of mind for a more important cause. If—if you live the rest of your life plagued by guilt and regret, but people who would have died have lived, isn't that for the best? Even if what you have to do feels horribly wrong, if it saves… people, then isn't that worth it? Isn't it?"

Harry stared at the curve of Malfoy's neck, wondering if they were still only talking about him. Malfoy seemed like he was trying to convince himself just as much as Harry.

"I don't know," said Harry finally. His voice sounded heavy, heavy and tired. He rubbed his face and plucked at the frayed sleeves of his pyjamas before he continued. "That… is a very difficult question, and an eternal one. If it's morally wrong, but it saves people, then is it right? Do the ends justify the means?"

"If you put it that way, of course people would say no. It's not that simple," said Malfoy, scowling at his knees.

"I know it isn't—that's why it's complicated. Everything's complicated. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. It depends on the case, and even then how do you determine what to do? What gives us the right to make that decision?"

"No one gives us the right. There's no god or anything like that to dictate it, so isn't it just up to us to decide? Right or none?"

"So in the end it's just arbitrary? There is no right answer."

"But that's not it either. There's definitely a difference. The two choices aren't equal. Haven't you ever thought how different it could have been? If you'd made the other choice?"

Harry stared at the flowers surrounding his knees. Something altogether familiar and disgusting was creeping up the back of his throat.

"Of course I've thought about it." He tried to keep his voice steady and didn't mention just how often he'd thought about it. Especially during those listless years just after the war… the years where nothing seemed to be going right. "But thinking about it, wondering how things would have gone differently, it doesn't do anything. What's done is done."

"Yes, of course it doesn't do anything. But don't you want to know? Won't you always wonder anyways? What if you'd done things differently? Would things be better now?"

Harry sighed. "I don't know. No one knows. Of course I'll always wonder; a part of me will always wonder, on cold nights when nothing's going right in my life I'll look back and wonder if I made the right choice. But for the most part, you have to lay that part to rest. Draco," he looked up at his name and met Harry's eye. "Eventually, you have to move on. I moved on."

Malfoy turned away again and shook his head. "You can't move on, you're lying, you can't move on from that."

"Yeah," said Harry, trying to be gentle, "You can." He felt as though they were on the cusp of something, and he wanted to complete it, whatever it was. "I did."

Silver eyes turned to him in surprise. He smiled encouragingly in response.

Harry leaned back, resting on his hands behind him and craning his neck to look up at the sky, look up at that one star that shined especially bright, seemed to be shining just for him.

He spoke. "Hermione's pregnant, did you know?"

"What?" said Draco, staring at him in bewilderment at the non-sequiter.

Harry glanced at him and smiled before turning his gaze back to the sky. "She's pregnant," he announced happily to the stars "She and Ron are going to have a baby. They got married this summer, did I ever tell you?"

Draco shook his head. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about my friends, you know. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Surely you remember them?"

"Er… yeah…"

"Well they got married this summer, had a big ceremony with all the family and everything. I was their best man." Harry's easy smile was full of reminiscence now. Draco stared at it in astonishment. "Of course, Ron panicked right before he was due to go out. Something stupid about how it all must be a mistake, why in Merlin's name could she possibly want to marry him, she must have been confounded, they had to get her to St. Mungo's…" He laughed. Draco blinked, startled. Laughter, real, easy laughter had never existed here before… "The only way I could calm him down was to tell him that I'd already checked Hermione thoroughly for any mind-meddling charms and then shoot him with a blast of aquamenti. The twins and I dried him off of course, but I guess we didn't take into account what water-damage could do to dress robes. _I _didn't think they looked too bad, but you should have seen Hermione! She marched down that aisle like an oncoming storm!" He laughed again. "I thought she was going to slap him instead of kiss him! You should've seen Ron's face. I've honestly never seen him more terrified than he was in that moment."

Draco watched Harry as he talked, only half listening. The man that sat before him was different than the boy he'd known at school, but of course that was obvious. It was the little differences that Draco found himself identifying while Harry rambled about his life and his friends. That mop of hair was still just as black and unruly as ever; wild strands hung into his eyes and periodically Harry would give a shake of his head to swing them aside, but inevitably more hair just fell to take their place. Draco thought he even saw a couple of rose petals in the bird's nest and almost smiled before he caught himself. So Harry's hair hadn't changed, but his face had matured, simultaneously filling out and becoming sharper. He was still pretty thin, but he was also tall now (though still just shy of being Draco's height he noticed a bit vindictively) and seemed to have a kind of wiry strength about him.

This garden that he'd resided in for seven years (seven years! He still couldn't believe it. It had felt at once both like such a shorter amount of time and infinitely longer.) was void of colour. Even his gold adornments seemed to have been bleached by the silver starlight until they completely lacked in luster. To Draco, Harry's eyes were a wellspring of liquid green for his parched eyes. He'd almost forgotten that such hues existed. Quite frankly, it was unnerving.

He was snapped out of his musings when Harry suddenly fell backwards, folding his hands beneath his head.

"And Ginny and Neville also got married this summer, although Gin isn't pregnant yet—"

"Wait, the Weaslette?"

"Huh?" Harry glanced at Draco, surprised by his interjection. He hadn't been sure that Malfoy was even listening. "Yeah, Ginny."

"I thought you two were a thing?"

Harry stared at him. "Wow, you really have been out of it for seven years, huh."

Draco scowled. Harry laughed.

"Alright, sorry. Yeah, we were together, but it sort of fell apart during the war. Afterwards we decided that we're better apart." He shrugged. "Anyways, so they got married, and a couple weeks ago bought a house. It's really nice, and it's even got this big greenhouse in the back…"

Draco returned to watching Harry talk, feeling a bit bewildered.

"So much has changed…" he muttered to himself.

"Yeah, things have changed," said Harry, catching his eye and holding it. Draco was mildly startled; he didn't think Harry had heard him.

"Seven years have passed, Draco. You know, they rebuilt the Ministry right afterwards. I helped out. Hogwarts was a lesser priority, but after the Ministry was done they focused on the school. It took quite a while, but you should see how it looks now." Harry smiled, imagining it. "Of course things are different, newer. They have Slughorn teaching potions until a better professor turns up. But a lot is still the same. I visited just a while ago, because Hermione teaches transfiguration, and the halls were filled with children who barely even remember the war. Things have changed, people have and are moving on. Even those that have lost the most. George is planning on proposing to Angelina and, and Teddy—Teddy Lupin is going to start at Hogwarts in a year. Draco."

Draco looked up from the rose he was fiddling with and was met by green eyes that were burning with some strange emotion… Draco felt his cheeks heat, an odd mixture of some sickly warm feeling and shame welling up. He wanted to duck his head down and hide it, but he didn't.

"Everyone has moved on, even I. You have to let it go."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on," said Harry, pushing down the frustration that automatically tried to surface. "There's got to be a reason why you're still here."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you might mean by that."

"And I haven't the slightest idea what it is that's keeping you here. But whatever it is, you have to let it go."

Draco looked away sharply, all at once grateful and annoyed when that weird feeling left.

"You think it's something about _me _that's keeping me here?"

"Well there has to be some reason."

"I thought we've been through this before. I'm trapped here. Against my will."

"Alright, so you're trapped here. But maybe it's because of some mental block, did you ever think of that?"

Draco scowled and picked at the petals of the rose in his lap. "If it were something I could control, I would have left long ago."

"But the gate's been there all along, Dumbledore told me. And he wouldn't have told me that you could leave if you couldn't."

"Well maybe his idea of 'leaving' is different than yours, have you ever thought about that? Snape also told me that I could leave. Dying is leaving too, you know."

"But Dumbledore said that you could come back to the real world. He explicitly said so, I asked."

"Well then he lied to you."

"But—"

"Just drop it, okay?"

Harry huffed a deep breath of frustration but let it drop. He'd learnt his lesson about pushing Malfoy too far. Not wanting to look at Malfoy's stupid face lest he get the urge to punch the infuriating git again, Harry flopped backwards, splaying his arms beside him.

The stars didn't look so comrade-y anymore. Their nervous twinkling looked like hands hiding whispered conferences; Harry imagined they were discussing him and his incompetence. Would Malfoy never consent to leave his prison? Harry had the sudden image of a hundred year old Harry visiting a still-seventeen Malfoy in this strange garden, while the real, physical Malfoy remained on his hospital bed all wrinkly and decrepit. But of course that would never happen—Malfoy would die long before then.

Thoughts of frustration and hopelessness plagued Harry as he laid in that bed of roses. And he'd thought they'd made so much progress! But Malfoy was as stubborn as ever and nothing would change.

He was so busy moping that he didn't notice anything amiss until the stars began to run like a painting in the rain. The flecks of light turned to smudged lines of light and then he was lying tangled in cold sheets with the watery morning sun slanting in from his window.

…

For a moment he just blinked at his ceiling, trying to drudge up the motivation to get up. It was a Saturday and he had the day off. He was scheduled to have dinner with Ron and Hermione, but that wasn't until one. If he stayed in bed he could get a couple more hours of sleep… if he got up he could go pick up some coffee and go do the errands that needed to be done.

With a sigh, he pushed off the covers and swung his legs to the side of the bed. A moment later he heaved himself up with a struggle and stumbled into the bathroom, scratching at his stomach and yawning. Hopefully he'd feel more awake after a quick shower.

He did feel refreshed after the shower, and after the coffee he felt even better. Michelle had smiled as she handed it to him, and they'd chatted briefly. She was doing well in college, and recently found a great subject for her thesis. He wished her luck in writing it and she wished him a good day. He felt lighter as he walked out of the coffee shop and two hours later his errands were completed.

Harry walked up the steps to his apartment feeling as though his hope had returned. He hummed as he juggled the groceries in order to unlock his door, and then shuffled into the kitchen where he dumped them on the counter. Ron and Hermione were due to arrive in a few hours, which gave him ample time to cook.

Harry let Ron and Hermione talk for a while, content to simply listen to the lilt of their voices. Talking to Malfoy last night had made him realize just how far they'd come. He felt immeasurably grateful that they were able to be here like this, the three of them, whole and happy despite all they'd been through. Now if only Malfoy would take that step as well…

"I'll probably have to shorten my teaching hours," Hermione was saying. "I hate to admit it, but teaching is beginning to be a bit difficult. My magic's gone a bit haywire."

She'd already explained about how a magical pregnancy was different than a muggle one. The child of a witch needed magic just as much as any other kind of sustenance, and so it messed with Hermione's spell casting just as much as the rest of her health, if not more.

"How far along are you again?" asked Harry, looking at Hermione's very round tummy.

"Getting on eight months now," said Hermione with a smile. "He or she's kicking all the time; it's quite a bother really."

"And you guys really aren't going to find out if it's a girl or a boy?" said Harry.

Ron shook his head. "We want it to be a surprise. I know, crazy, right? Hermione _choosing_ to have information withheld from her."

"Hey," said Hermione affectionately, "I can want a surprise every now and then too."

"Of course you can," said Harry with a grin. "So who's going to cover your classes then?"

"I think Minerva may have to. That's part of the reason I'm so reluctant to ask for leave—I really don't want to give her any more work; she's busy enough just managing the school."

"Professor Mcgonagall will be fine," said Harry. "You shouldn't underestimate her."

Hermione sighed. "I know, she's very strong. But she's not as young as she used to be, you know?"

"Oi, she's not nearly as old as Dumbledore was, is she?" said Ron.

Hermione smiled. "No, she's not quite there yet. Yes, I suppose it would be alright… but I can probably withstand a few more weeks."

"Nonsense," said Ron, "You should ask for leave next week. Your health comes first in this, alright?"

Harry could tell by Hermione's fond look that this wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation.

"Alright, alright," said Hermione. She turned to Harry. "But enough about me. Has anything new happened with Malfoy?"

Harry grinned and jumped into the retelling of the past couple of nights. He was especially eager to recount last night's conversation: despite the rough note they'd ended on, he thought they'd really made some progress.

"And we talked about his mum for a while, too. It's odd, they're such a cold family but they love each other as much as you guys do—" he nodded towards Ron, "—and I think he's had a hard time of Narcissa's death. But the strange thing is that Snape comforted him a bit, or something. Isn't that funny, all of the Slytherins being all mushy?" He laughed and didn't notice that Hermione's smile had dissipated as he talked. "And we talked some more about the war and stuff… at least I think we did. It was all pretty abstract and metaphor-y. But he sounds like he's getting better, maybe even getting towards the point where he can move on."

"Oh, Harry," said Hermione. He looked up, surprised by the sorrow in her voice.

"What?"

"You haven't read the prophet, have you?"

"Uh, no," he said, a bit bewildered. "I stopped ordering it years ago. Why, what's up?"

She looked at Ron beseechingly. He shrugged, but his expression was somber as well.

"It sounds like you've made loads of progress with Malfoy," he hedged.

"Yeah," said Harry, looking back and forth between them, "I have."

"Well then I don't know if you want to hear this. Or if you do, maybe you just shouldn't tell him."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Hermione looked helplessly at him.

"What is it? What's happened?"

With one last glance at Ron, as though her eyes were gathering courage from the simple act of gazing at him, Hermione took a deep breath and told him.

…

Harry was back at King's Cross. He wondered what it was that determined whether he came here or not. Some nights he simply went straight to Draco's garden. The thought of that silent, rose-filled world made him anxious so he turned his mind from it. Perhaps he came to King's Cross whenever he needed to—it seemed like he only ever appeared here when he had questions to ask.

"My dear boy," said Dumbledore. He was sitting on one of the benches. Harry vaguely wondered whether it was the same bench they'd sat on last time. There was no way of knowing; they all looked the same. "What can I help you with?"

Harry took his time in making his way over to the bench and sitting down. It was a simple enough action, but as always when he spoke with Dumbledore here, he wished to take a moment to gather his thoughts.

"I've been thinking a lot," he said to begin with.

Dumbledore nodded at him to continue, his eyes twinkling.

"I've been thinking and… well this morning I went out for coffee, and then I went to run some errands, and somewhere along the way I had an idea. It rather took me by surprise, actually."

Dumbledore was smiling. "Yes, they tend to do that."

Harry glanced at him, then looked back at his lap. It was unnerving, to see him there like that, pristine and whole like Dumbledore alive. It made him nervous to ask what he was about to ask. What if he were wrong?

"I… Draco said some things, over the course of, well the past month I suppose. And I never noticed it before, but then suddenly it clicked." He paused.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, and his voice was gentle. Gentler than Harry had ever heard it before. Somehow, it sounded closer to Harry than Dumbledore ever was; it sounded as though Dumbledore were speaking to him as an equal, as though they were not separated by anything, even age. "You can ask it of me; it's alright."

Harry looked at Dumbledore then. His eyes weren't twinkling, and he looked suddenly young, though nothing had physically changed. He looked young, yet immeasurably mature as though his eyes had seen a millennium pass without him ever aging.

"I—" Harry began, and then stopped. "Are you Dumbledore? Really Dumbledore? Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the man that was my headmaster for six years? You aren't are you?" It all came out in a rush.

Dumbledore gazed at him for a moment before he said, simply, "No."

Harry let his eyes drop. "That's what I thought." His voice was quieter now.

"I'm sorry," said the Dumbledore who was not-Dumbledore, and his voice was also quiet. Harry looked up again in surprise. "I never meant to trick you or hide it from you, I just—" Now he looked younger than Harry; he looked like a child who had done something impulsively and only now realized that it was wrong, and felt dreadful about it.

"It's alright," Harry found himself saying.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable if I talked to you like this. That's all."

Harry nodded. "And you thought Draco would be more comfortable if…"

"I _am_ sorry about him, truly I am."

Harry sighed. "I suppose you hated him at first, right?" Not-Dumbledore nodded. "Well you can let him out now, can't you?"

"I don't know." His long fingered hands fluttered as if he wished to do something with them, but didn't know what. He ended up folding them in his lap.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I… I know what you must think of me, but I really am not that powerful."

"But you created that world, right? Surely you can destroy it."

Not-Dumbledore's fingers were restless again.

"I don't… I don't think so." He sounded horribly despaired by that idea. "I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay," said Harry hastily, realizing bizarrely that he was trying to comfort what appeared to be a hundred-something year old man. "I just don't understand."

"That world… I created it, in a sense, but I also didn't."

"What?" Harry said, bewildered.

"I created it just as much as I created this place, that is to say, I only created the space for the world to exist. He filled his world himself, just as you filled this one."

"…okay?"

"Oh, Dumbledore said it much better, didn't he? 'This is your party, after all,' right? That's what it comes down to."

"Okay…" Harry tried to wrap his mind around that. "But then if Draco made that world, he can leave it right?"

"I don't know."

"But… you said that the gate would take him out of it, right?"

"Yes, but I don't know where it will take him."

"Wait, so Draco could be right? He could die if he went through it? But you told me that he would come back."

"I—it depends."

"What? What does it depend on?"

Not-Dumbledore wasn't looking at him. "Harry, you have to understand. I—there are certain things that—I still don't like him very much."

Harry stared at him, and slowly comprehension began to dawn. "Oh."

"I am sorry, but…" he shrugged. It looked very strange, coming from what looked like Dumbledore.

"Yes," said Harry. "I think I get it." And Harry thought he did get it. Not-Dumbledore was sorry, but not for Draco, he was only sorry because Harry was sorry for Draco.

Harry felt he was done here, and the world began to dissolve into fog.

"Harry—"said Not-Dumbledore suddenly. He was looking at Harry pleadingly; he looked as though he was on the verge of reaching out and grabbing Harry's sleeve. Harry felt unnerved. "I am sorry, really sorry; I wish I could help you more but it's—it's difficult and—"

Harry stared at him as the fog began to swirl in and felt a strange combination of bitterness and that same sad pity he'd felt towards Draco.

"It's alright, don't worry," he said as he turned into the mist. "I'll take care of it. Just—" he sighed. "Just…don't worry." And then King's cross was gone and an infinite black sky was opening up before him, stars winking into existence.

…

Tonight, Draco was sitting cross-legged on one of the stone benches, fiddling with a paper crane. For a moment Harry remained lying on the ground, simply looking at Draco.

Draco didn't take his eyes off the crane in his hands and said, "I've been experimenting."

Harry sat up but didn't yet go over to Draco. Instead he bent his legs, his feet on the ground, rested his arms on his knees and hung his head, taking deep breaths.

"Experimenting with what?" he asked after a moment.

"I'm trying to see how long I can keep a rose transfigured before it turns back."

Harry still couldn't look at Draco. "How long have you gotten so far?"

"One minute twenty three seconds," said Draco. "But of course I don't know how exact that is. It's not as though I have any way of telling time here."

There was a pause in which the crane Draco'd been fiddling with unfolded back into a rose. He threw it on the ground where it became indistinguishable from the rest.

"I could bring you a watch, if you'd like," said Harry.

Draco looked at him then, and for a moment their eyes met. Harry turned away and reached up to brush at his fringe.

"Actually, I don't think I'd like that much at all," said Draco.

Harry picked up a rose and wondered if it would stay transfigured if he were the one to perform the spell. He belatedly realized that he never brought his wand here. He'd never needed it.

"Why do you keep transfiguring them?" asked Harry. Draco'd been doing it non-stop ever since he'd gotten his wand back. Sometimes it was into random little things, like bowls or pincushions, but mostly it was the cranes.

Draco shrugged. "Something to do."

Harry wondered if he could transfigure wandlessly. He tried; nothing happened.

"Do you not like roses?" he asked.

Again, Draco shrugged. His shoulders were bony, like his wrists. "My mother loved them."

"What about you?"

"I don't know. I spent a lot of time in the rose garden as a child since mother was always there. Father came often as well, actually. He never admitted it, but I think he liked the roses just as much as she did."

There was something in Harry's throat. He tried clearing it, but that just resulted in an awkward strangled sound and didn't do anything at all.

"Draco," he said, and then stopped. He was still sitting in the roses, a meter away from the fountain.

"I suppose roses are all right, as far as flowers go," Draco went on.

"Draco, I—" he couldn't say it. That stupid thing in his throat was getting in the way.

Draco waited politely for Harry to finish his sentence, and when it was clear that he wasn't about to, continued, "They're better than narcissuses for sure. Wow try saying that five times fast. Narcissuses narcissuses narcissuses."

"There's… Draco I need to tell you something…"

A moment passed in expectant silence, and then another, and then Draco said, "Yes? Go on."

Harry looked at Draco and the relaxed curve of his shoulders, the curve that softened the harsh edges and had only appeared after they'd been talking for a month, and he couldn't say it. He shook his head.

Draco evaluated him for a beat, and then said, "Alright then. I always did know you were slightly off." He waited a moment as though for Harry's smart reply, but none came. Harry's damned throat was still giving him trouble. "As I was saying. Roses, they're alright really. Nice spines to protect themselves with. Much better than lilies, of course." Again he paused. He was beginning to look a bit hesitant. "But, despite the many pros of roses, I don't think I'd ever pick a rose garden to spend seven years in."

Harry thought he'd better enter the conversation, lest Draco ask him what was wrong.

"Where would you choose to spend seven years?" he asked.

"I'd rather not choose one place to spend seven years, actually," said Draco.

"Well yes. But I mean, if you had to." Harry continued the conversation.

"I guess," Draco thought for a moment. "If I had to choose one setting, I think I'd like to choose the sea."

"The sea?" Harry was surprised. "Just, in the middle of the ocean?"

Draco shot him a look. "No you nitwit. A beach, by the sea."

"A beach, really? Would it be sandy or pebbly? Night time or day time?" The thing in his throat was fading, slowly.

"Hmm…" Draco got a faraway look. "Sandy, of course. And… day time. But not sunny."

"What, you want it to be raining? Wouldn't that be awfully… wet?"

"Not raining," said Draco. "But cloudy; cloudy and windy. It would be stormy further out, so that the water boiled and the waves had little crowns of white. Where the water met the sand it would be foam, and cliffs would loom from behind."

"Would… would everything be grey then? A grey sky and grey water, that's what happens in a storm, right?" Harry was looking at Draco's faraway eyes.

"No, there would have to be colour. It would seem like everything should be grey, but the water would be a deep blue and just before the crest of the waves, when they reared up high and folded over themselves, the light would shine through making the water glow green." Draco glanced at Harry, involuntarily it seemed—he looked to be surprised when their eyes met—and then looked quickly away again.

"It sounds beautiful," Harry heard himself say. He quickly tried to amend the brief slip into Hufflepuff territory, "But, I mean, wouldn't it be sort of difficult to spend seven months in a place like that? It sounds cold and… you wouldn't even be able to make a sand castle. If it was windy."

Draco shrugged. He'd been doing a lot of that lately, Harry noticed. "It wouldn't have to be cold. And besides, it would be constantly changing. It would make things interesting, at least."

"I suppose…" Harry was skeptical, but that feeling was almost gone. "Why the sea?"

"I've always loved the sea," said Draco.

Harry thought about that for a moment, how strangely random that was. Then he got up, brushed off a couple of rose petals and went over to the bench. He gestured for Draco to scoot over, and plopped down beside him.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know," replied Draco, looking at him a bit quizzically. "Maybe because I've only ever seen it once."

He had that faraway look again. Harry followed his eyes and tried to see what Draco was seeing, but all he saw was roses and stars.

"I've never been."

Draco turned to him at that. "What? You've never been to the ocean?"

Harry shook his head and then paused. "Well, once. But… I don't think it counts."

"What? How could it not count? You've either been or haven't been."

"It wasn't very enjoyable." At least, not until Hagrid came.

"Hmm," said Draco, sounding skeptical.

"What about you? What was the time you went?"

"I was very young," Draco said. "Must have been around six or seven. No, it was seven. It was my seventh birthday, I remember now."

"What is with you and the number seven?" asked Harry wryly.

"Shut up, I'm telling a story," said Draco. Harry shut up. "Now usually I had great extravagant parties for my birthday." Harry snorted but quickly clamped his jaw shut when Draco glared at him. "As I was saying. Usually I had these brilliant parties. They would take months to prepare and mother would invite all of the elite families.

"But just before my seventh birthday, I contracted pixie pox."

"Pixie pox?" Harry was grinning. "What, pray tell, is pixie pox?"

"You never had pixie pox?" Draco sniffed. "Figures, it's a disease only common among powerfully magical children."

"Right." Said Harry.

"Anyway, it's a horrible disease that left me bedridden for the month leading up to my birthday and dreadfully weak for the month after that. Naturally, they had to cancel the party. I was quite distraught—that party was the highlight of my year. I was very upset, but then… then something happened that had never happened before and would never happen again." He paused. "My father, on a whim, suggested we go to the beach."

And the thing in Harry's throat was back. He swallowed heavily. Draco hadn't noticed.

"It was spontaneous, and so unlike my father, and we took the train. I think I was in a state of sort of awed stupor the entire time." Draco smiled softly, and Harry once more couldn't look at him. "When we got to the beach, it was raining. It wasn't stormy, it was just raining, water from the sky pouring straight down to earth. I couldn't even see the sea because the sheets of rain obscured it. And the sound of the waves was covered by the patter of water on water, and even that sounded muffled somehow. It was miserable. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before: one thing going wrong after the other. Everything always went perfectly, my parents ensured it. But even they couldn't control disease or the weather. I think I was too shocked to cry, even."

Harry thought he could imagine it, a little seven-year old Draco, thin but with his points softened by baby fat, his hair impossibly even blonder than it was now. He could imagine his little grey eyes staring wide at the rain, too shocked to even whine about it. The mental image made Harry strangely sad.

"But then my father simply turned around and led us back into the small seaside town, unfazed. He took us to this little café and—and he bought me an ice cream." He took a moment as though to allow that incredulous information sink in. "You have to understand, my father had never allowed me to eat ice cream—he said that it was commoner's dessert and below me. But I always wanted it, and this time, this one time, he bought it for me. By that time I was pretty convinced that I was dreaming."

Harry looked at Draco then, forced himself to look at him and make a conscious decision. He could keep it to himself, pretend he didn't know. That's what Ron had suggested after all. It would be simple and probably even helpful. They were making progress; Draco was beginning to open up to him, trust him. Harry was sure that given a while longer, he'd be able to convince Draco to step through the gate. (He didn't allow himself to think about what Not-Dumbledore had said; he couldn't afford to question the validity of the idea that Draco would be able to come back.) If he told Draco now… Harry was afraid of how he would react. At the very least it would probably set them back weeks.

But he deserved to know.

"Draco…" Harry said, touching his shoulder gently to get his full attention. Draco turned to him, a question in his eyes. Harry forced himself to meet that question, took a deep breath, and said, "Draco, Lucius is dead."

Harry only just had time to see Draco's eyes widen slightly, when the world began to tilt and the colours slid against each.

* * *

**A/N:** The quote that Draco says is by Oscar Wilde.

I would love to hear some opinions on this so far. When writing it, I felt that I was being quite heavy handed with the plot, but I'm not so sure anymore. Is it horribly confusing, or is everything rather obvious?

Someone asked me if I was inspired by a manga called Olympos. Indeed I was, but I'd totally forgotten about it by the time I finished the fic so sorry for not mentioning it. The beautiful imagery in Olympos truly inspired me, and so I borrowed it for this fic. There are also a few other elements that were inspired by it, so all of that belongs to the author, Aki. For the most part, though, this fic deviates from the manga, and the overarching plot and content is mine. :)


	4. Chapter 4

IV

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

"_Draco, why don't you stop this foolishness?"_

_Draco spun around and stumbled, tripping backwards._

"_Don't _do _that!" he said, catching his breath. He groaned when he realized that he'd turned around and looked, involuntarily. There it was again, the stone fountain and two benches, and Snape standing not two feet before him, his face an impassive mask._

"_I thought you were more intelligent than this, to be perfectly honest. I must say I'm disappointed."_

_Draco sneered at him. "You can drop the act; you sound nothing like him."_

_Snape blinked blankly. "I haven't the slightest what you might mean by that."_

"_Oh you know very well what I mean. I would recognize Snape in a heartbeat. I know an imposter when I see one, don't belittle me."_

_Snape stared at him coolly for a moment. "You may choose to believe whatever you wish."_

"_Fine then, continue play acting. But you have quite a way to go—you're not nearly as cold and heartless as he was."_

_For a moment a look of surprise crossed Snape's face, but it was soon wiped away and replaced by a thinning of the lips. Draco turned around and began walking once more, determined not to be tricked into looking behind him again._

_Snape let him go, and time passed-how much, Draco had no way of knowing. But it at least a couple of hours must have passed before Snape was suddenly standing before him. Startled, Draco stepped back; although this time he managed not to fall._

"_Where do you think you're going?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious._

_Draco ignored him and focused instead on not turning around. At least this time he hadn't shown up from behind. He hadn't lost the progress he'd made. Stepping around Snape, he continued walking._

"_What do you think you'll find? I told you, you won't find anything." Snape said, catching up to him._

"_Shut up," snapped Draco._

"_I don't understand you," said Snape. "Why do you keep walking? Don't you know that you always end up in the same place?"_

_Draco pursed his lips and remained silent._

"_Look, right back where you started from."_

_Draco blinked, and then suddenly the stone fountain and benches was there again, just a few feet in front of him. He stared at it for a few seconds before whirling on Snape._

"_Stop it, just stop it. Why are you doing this? Why do you keep bothering me?"_

"_I'm only trying to keep you company," said Snape, his voice as low as it was in real life, but somehow with more inflection._

"_Well stop. I'd rather suffer by myself, thank you very much."_

_The corners of Snape's mouth turned down ever so slightly. "You don't have to suffer," he said. "This is a very nice garden, is it not? Why can't you just enjoy it?"_

"_I don't care how pretty it is. I just want to get out of here."_

"_Then you have to make the choice. I told you already. You can leave if you choose."_

"_Yeah," sneered Draco. "Choose to die. As if I'd make that choice. As if anyone in their right mind would make that choice."_

_Snape was silent, but Draco could feel him walking alongside him. When he spoke again, his voice was a murmur. "Would you rather nothing ever changed?"_

"_Of course I want some change. But I'm sure something will change if I keep walking; this place can't go on forever."_

"_Nothing will change if you just continue to walk."_

"_Well thank you for that advice, you've been ever so helpful. Now if you would fuck off and leave me be, I'd be very much obliged."_

_Draco felt Snape stop walking, and for a moment he thought perhaps the stupid git had taken his advice and buggered off. But then Snape caught up with him again and said, "I wish you wouldn't be like that."_

"_Like what," Draco barked._

"_You're making this more difficult than it needs to be."_

"_Oh yeah?"_

"_This is hard for me too, you know," said Snape._

_Draco suppressed a snort. Snorting was undignified. "I'm sure it is."_

"_It is, rather." Snape sounded somewhat indignant. "I didn't want to do this. But certain circumstances… things didn't turn out as they should have."_

"_Right. Well I'm very sorry that your life is so difficult. Or, death or however it is you classify your existence."_

"_Why must you be so insufferable?" Snape's composure was slipping. "I'm not trying to make you suffer. I've helped you more than you know. Can't you just cooperate?"_

"_Sorry," said Draco dismissively, "Cooperation isn't in my repertoire. If you want to help me so much, why don't you let me out of here?"_

"_I don't want to," said Snape, somewhat petulantly._

_Draco, surprised, turned to him at that. (The walking thing was no use, and Draco was beginning to resign himself to that fact.)_

"_Well then you're no help at all, are you! Why are you even here; what's your purpose, just to mess with me? Well I don't want your stupid meddling so why don't you just fuck off already!"_

"_I'm just," Snape began. His composure had fallen quite far, and now he just looked a bit lost. It was pathetic, really._

"_Unless you can help me find another way to get out of this hellhole," said Draco._

"_It's not a hellhole," returned Snape, the meager defense as much as he could muster._

"_Well it certainly isn't heaven," snapped Draco. _

"_It's your world," said Snape. "I only built it."_

"_Right well then unbuild it, why don't you?"_

"_I can't."_

"_Why, you are just a veritable fountain of helpfulness, aren't you? Look, why don't you run off and go help someone else then?"_

_Snape was frowning._

"_I'm not very good at helping people," he said._

"_No shit," said Draco._

"_I've been trying to help you."_

"_Yeah and look at how well you've been doing. Bravo, excellent work. If you were looking to fuck up my life, then you've definitely succeeded."_

_Something flashed in Snape's black eyes._

"_I think you did a well enough job fucking up your own life, don't you?" he bit out._

"_Right," said Draco, his voice low. "I did. But the war was over; I could get back on track. Then you got in the way and ended my life before it could begin. That's what you do best, right? Jump in right at the worst moment and fuck everything up?"_

"_I don't—that's not what I—"_

"_Oh save your bullshit," Draco spat. The little spots of pink that had appeared high on Snape's cheeks annoyed Draco to no end. Snape didn't get flustered. Ever._

"_You—this doesn't have to be this difficult."_

"_Okay, you want to help me? Do something about this fucking world. It's bleak and boring and I hate it almost as much as I hate you. Anything to pass the time would be better than this infinite dullness."_

"_I told you," said Snape. "I don't have much power."_

"_Well then just fuck off and leave me be."_

_Snape stared at him for a moment. They weren't walking anymore, and Draco had his head turned away from the gross imitation of his once-mentor._

"_You know what?" said Snape finally. "You are an insolent brat." Draco rather thought that Snape was behaving more like an insolent brat, but to each his own. "You are selfish and prissy and uncooperative simply for the sake of being uncooperative."_

"_I'm glad you understand me so well," snapped Draco._

"_You want something to occupy your time? Fine, I'll give you something to occupy your time. You think that things can change here? That you can find an exit other than the one I've laid out for you? I'll show you that you can't. This world is eternal. You will never find your exit and nothing will ever change. Here. Feel free to play around as long as you like until you understand what I've told you."_

_With that rant delivered, Snape tossed an object into the roses at Draco's feet. Draco only just glanced at the ground, but by the time he'd returned his eyes to Snape, he was gone._

_Feeling a strange mixture of frustration, anger, and a hopeless despair that he'd been trying desperately to hold back, Draco crouched down amongst the roses and picked up the gift Snape had left for him. It was a knife. A stone knife, small like the kind he used to cut potions ingredients, but inscribed with the same strange designs that crawled over the stone benches and fountain. Draco slowly walked over to the bench that had appeared at the same time Snape'd disappeared, and sat down to decipher why on earth Snape would give him a knife._

_It only took a couple of days for him to figure it out._

_Snape was right after all; this world resisted change. It didn't take long for Draco to grow bored of cutting up roses and watching each petal birth a new flower like some sort of demented hydra. For a while he let the knife be. But it was constantly there, tempting him to experiment more, and eventually sheer boredom led him to wonder whether he himself was considered a part of this unchangeable world as well._

…

Harry was horribly worried as he fell asleep that night. He honestly had no idea how Draco was going to react, but he was sure that it couldn't be good. There wasn't much he could do, though, right? A world of flowers didn't lend itself to being terribly dangerous, but… but he had his wand…. And Harry was worried nonetheless.

He wanted to fall asleep quickly so that he could go to Draco, but the more he worried the more difficult it was to drift off. It was a vicious cycle, and for the first time in quite a while, Harry wished he had some dreamless sleep. Then again, he didn't know whether he would be able to go to Draco's world in a potion induced sleep—really, Harry didn't know much at all.

Finally, after tossing and turning for far more hours than necessary, Harry drifted off from pure mental exhaustion.

…

When Harry awoke, his typical view of the night sky was partially obstructed. He felt a chill like cold water pour over him when he identified the stone arch looming above him. Not wanting to think about what its presence might mean, Harry quickly sat up and looked around. Relief swept through him when he spotted Draco, sitting with his legs folded up, his arms around his knees, staring at the arch. Harry had a strange sense of not-quite-déjà vu; Draco's posture reminded him of those quiet nights in first year, the nights he himself had spent gazing at the Mirror of Erised

Still feeling somewhat cautious, Harry made his way across the few meters between them and sat down besides Draco, crossing his legs beneath him and holding his hands in his lap.

He was sure that Draco had noticed him, but he had yet to acknowledge Harry's presence. Harry let the silence continue, sure that Draco would speak when he was ready.

"Snape was right, wasn't he?"

Harry looked at Draco. His face was impassive, his eyes guarded, but his shoulders were set in a bony line; Harry wanted to reach out a hand and smooth it out. He kept his hands in his lap.

"What do you mean?"

"I should die."

Harry felt a flash of alarm, but forced himself to remain calm. "Why?" he asked, attempting to keep his voice soft.

"I should have died seven years ago," said Draco, ignoring Harry. "There was no reason for me to draw it out for this long."

"Of course there was a reason," said Harry.

Draco tilted his head slightly, as much of an acknowledgement of Harry as he was going to get. Harry went on, encouraged.

"You're a Slytherin. You have sheer Slytherin self-preservational stubbornness. I hear it's quite difficult to get rid of."

Draco didn't laugh. He appeared to deflate. His shoulders drooped, but Harry wasn't sure if it were an improvement. All of a sudden, Draco appeared terribly exhausted. This alarmed Harry most of all. Throughout all the time Harry'd spent with Draco here, he had always contained a ferocity, a fierce will that caved in face of nothing, even seven years of monotonous solitude. And now Harry could see that will seeping away, and for the first time he was truly afraid of the possibility of Draco dying.

"Hey," said Harry, reaching out instinctively. He hesitated for a moment, but it wasn't long, and then he was grasping Draco's shoulder, gently but firmly, and turning him to face him. "Hey, it's alright. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. But he lived for a long time, and even if it was in Azkaban it wasn't that bad because Kingsley reformed Azkaban when he was first elected in office so I'm sure your dad never suffered much and—" Draco was shaking his head minutely and Harry snapped his jaw shut when he realized he probably wasn't helping.

"I should just go." Draco made to get up, to go towards the arch, but his movements were feeble and Harry easily pulled him back down.

"No, no wait. We can get through this. Just talk to me, yeah?"

Draco still refused to look at Harry, but it wasn't an active refusal. He just kept his head bowed, his hair falling in his eyes.

"I thought you wanted me to go through the gate," he said.

"I… I do," said Harry. "But. But not like this, I—I don't know what would happen if you went through like this—please—"

"You know it too now, right? Snape always told the truth."

"I—that's not the point. Look, Draco, just look at me okay? We can—you should calm down."

Neither of them mentioned that Harry was the frantic one.

"Just let me go," said Draco. It sounded like a sigh.

"No, no I won't. Let's just… just move away from the gate, alright? Come on."

Harry tried to pull Draco up, but only served to get his hand slapped away. That shocked him into silence; so far Draco had remained completely impassive.

"There's nothing left to discuss. There's nothing left. Let me go."

"Draco," Harry was pleading now.

"Harry," said Draco, and met his eyes. Harry was alarmed to see that Draco's were wet—alarmed but then strangely relieved. Those eyes held a pain and despair, but they were not yet dead. "Harry, there's no more reason for me to stay alive. There's nothing for me left on Earth. Can't you see? Can't you understand?"

"I do, said Harry, "I do understand, I get it. But you can't let this defeat you, you have to… find something else. Find some other reason to stay alive."

Draco was shaking his head. "I can't, there's nothing, nothing at all. If I left—If I left—" He squeezed his eyes shut and tears rolled down his flushed cheeks.

"Don't," said Harry. "Stop, there's plenty left. I'm sorry about your dad, truly I am. But you have to… you have to move on."

"If I left—" Draco continued as though Harry hadn't spoken, "If I left then Dumbledore wouldn't bother you anymore, right? Snape wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. I should just—I should—"

"Stop, don't say that—Draco!" Harry grasped Draco's arms, "There's always something else, there's always something, just calm down and—"

"He's gone." And Draco's voice was quiet again. It frightened Harry horribly. "He's gone and she's gone and everyone's gone ahead; isn't it my time now? Shouldn't I follow them?"

"No, no, shh," Draco's shoulders were a brittle line again, and it felt natural for Harry to gather him in his arms, holding his blond head to the crook of his neck. He could feel his t-shirt dampening but he didn't care.

"Let go of me," said Draco, his voice muffled and small, but he made no move to push away from Harry.

"Listen, you're alright. Just—just let it out. We'll get past this and then—"

"Why? There's no point is there? You're just prolonging it."

Harry didn't know what to do. This was nothing like that time Cho'd cried, but still he had no idea where he was supposed to put his hands or what he was supposed to say. Unlike that time, however, now he felt quite different about the situation. He wanted to help, to comfort, but he didn't know how.

"I—I'm sorry," he said, feeling awfully helpless.

"I'll die sooner or later. It isn't as though anything will change if I stay here."

"Shh," said Harry. He rubbed Draco's back and murmured reassuring nonsense, trying desperately to think of what he could say, what he could do.

Then something quite unexpected happen. Harry thought he heard a voice, one other than his or Draco's. But that wasn't possible, unless Snape had decided to show his face. Somehow Harry doubted that. He'd just begun to put it out of his mind and focus back on the fragile boy in his arms, when he heard it again. There was something there, a voice, calling his name.

Harry pressed his cheek against cold blond hair and tried to ignore whatever he was hearing.

But he couldn't ignore the sudden tilting or the horribly bizarre feeling that Draco was melting in his arms. He would have called out if he could, perhaps shouted "No!" in an attempt at preventing his wakening through the sound of his voice, but he didn't even have time to panic. One moment he was comforting a breaking Draco, and the next he was gasping awake in bed to the tune of his name being called.

…

"HARRY POTTER GET YOUR LAZY ARSE OVER HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Harry rolled over and wasted a second attempting to tug all of his hair out. Then he kicked off the tangled sheets and rolled off the bed. He ran over to the fireplace, utilizing every curse word he'd learnt from Draco.

"What the hell-?" His expletive was cut short when he saw who was in his grate. It was Sam from the hospital, and she looked frantic. "What is it?" he asked, "What's happened?"

"Your best friend has gone into labor and encountered complications. You've been requested to help stabilize. Now get dressed and down to the hospital ASAP!" That said, Sam ducked out of the grate.

Before the fire had fully died, Harry was back in his room ripping off his pajamas and pulling on his healer's robes, resuming his stream of curses. He didn't bother to check a mirror, so his hair was a mess and there were wrinkles from the sheets on his cheek. As he ran out of his apartment and apparated to St. Mungo's, he felt oddly like he was being stretched thin, a part of his mind still back with Draco, fretting about what Draco would do without him there, and another part was reaching towards Hermione, wondering and worrying about the "complications" and all together it left him feeling frazzled and frantic.

A nurse took one glance at him and pointed in the direction of the maternity ward. Cursing the fact that apparition was banned in the hospital, Harry sprinted to the door marked Granger-Weasley and stumbled into the room, panting and holding the stitch in his side.

The next four hours passed as a high-contrast blur. They'd had to perform a caesarean section, and the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby's neck. Harry knew nothing about this branch of healing; his job was simply to stabilize her magic. The stressful situation was aggravated by the fact that, in a magical birth, the infant's magic must separate from the mother's. With complications like this one, the magic tended to go crazy, endangering the child and mother alike. Harry, as one of Hermione's best friends, knew her magic well and was more suited to stabilize it than any of the healers. Ron wasn't allowed to be in the room, as the father's magic also influenced the child's. Harry's job was a difficult one, and by the time everyone was safe and stable, he was exhausted.

The healer handed Hermione her baby daughter, and Harry smiled tiredly at the love and happiness shining on her face. They allowed Ron back in, and he crowded around the bed, eager to see his child.

Harry slumped into a chair and ran a hand through his hair. He still felt torn—both happy for Ron and Hermione, and still worried about Draco.

"Have you guys chosen a name?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked at him. "Actually, we were hoping you would choose. Come over here."

Surprised and confused, Harry heaved himself up and walked the two steps to the bed. Hermione handed him her daughter, and he took her in a daze.

"She's so… wrinkly."

Hermione laughed. Ron grinned as though infinitely proud that his baby looked like a prune.

Harry stared into the tiny face, a pale face with a tuft of coppery hair and already a few freckles.

"So, anything come to mind?" said Ron.

"Wait, you really want me to name her?"

"Yeah," said Hermione. "We couldn't agree on anything, so we decided to make it up to you. You are her godfather, after all."

"What? I am?"

"Of course," laughed Ron. "Now come on, mate. She needs a name."

Harry looked at the tiny child in his arms in bewilderment. This was a human being, a real, live human being that just moments ago had been in Hermione's stomach. Harry involuntarily made a face at that thought.

"Oi," said Ron, "She's not that wrinkly."

Harry smiled a little. "Alright, let me think," he said, and turned his thoughts to names.

He was so tired, though, and soon his mind drifted back to that dream world.

The ground was a sea of white petals and the sky opened up into infinity. At first glance, it looked black, but upon further inspection it contained a thousand shades of blue. The stars hung like raindrops frozen in a moment, singing with a million voices as one. Draco Malfoy sat on a stone bench surrounded by paper cranes, and the starlight poured over him, dripping silver from his hair. Roses flowed from a fountain, and the world was still and unchanged.

"Rose," Harry heard himself say, and then looked up. "How about Rose?"

…

By the time Harry got home, the sun was shining obscenely bright but he had no trouble falling in bed and finding sleep. Soon, he was blinking awake in Draco's world.

He didn't immediately see the gate this time, but he wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. When he sat up and looked around, he quickly identified Draco and for a moment worry spiked again.

He was lying amidst the roses, feet from the fountain. The arch was nowhere in sight, but Draco wasn't moving and his eyes were closed.

Harry shuffled over until he was sitting beside Draco's supine form, sitting cross-legged and facing him. He was relieved to see that thin chest slowly moving up and down. Perhaps Draco was simply asleep.

"I couldn't do it."

Or maybe not.

"Couldn't do what?" asked Harry, pretty sure that he knew what Draco was talking about.

"I couldn't leave. Seven years here wishing more than anything to get out, and when it came down to it I couldn't."

"Well." Said Harry. "I'm glad." Did Harry just imagine it, or did the tip of Draco's mouth lift up slightly at that? "I'm sorry for disappearing so suddenly."

"That's alright," said Draco. "I'm sure you have better things to do than babysit me."

"No, I—"

"Does this mean that I'm a coward?" said Draco, cutting Harry off.

"Um."

"What a stupid question. We already knew that I'm a coward, right?"

"I always knew that you were a coward," said Harry frankly. "But I don't think this was one of your cowardly instances. Self-preservation isn't cowardice."

"Isn't it though?" argued Draco. "Aren't martyrs considered brave? Isn't self-sacrifice taken to be courageous?"

"Perhaps sometimes," said Harry. "But there wasn't anything for you to sacrifice yourself for, no noble cause. There is no reason for you to die."

"There's plenty of reason for me to die."

Harry shook his head. "Not today, not now, not ever, actually. There is no reason great enough to simply throw away your life."

"Even still." Draco drew his wrist up over his eyes. "I couldn't do it. I loathe myself."

Harry didn't know what to say. He was familiar with self-hate, and he didn't think that now was the time for him to argue with Draco. So instead he said, "Come on, get up. Come over here."

Draco opened one eye and gazed at Harry.

"Come on, sit up, it's difficult to have a conversation when you're lying down."

Draco stared at him for a moment longer, but he didn't mention the fact that they'd both held quite lengthy discussions lying down. Eventually he sighed and sat up slowly. At Harry's beckoning, he went over and they sat together in the roses, backs leaning against the base of the fountain.

Draco was sitting straight, as though someone were pulling him up by an invisible string through the center of his head. He looked stiff and uncomfortable and just generally miserable.

Looking at him, Harry decided in that moment that he would give all the comfort he could, but he wouldn't push Draco, and he wouldn't overthink it. So, going on pure instinct, Harry broached the foot between them and took Draco's hand. A moment passed, and then another, and then Draco turned his hand under Harry's and linked their fingers. Harry smiled slightly and began to speak.

"Hermione gave birth to a little baby girl. I didn't think it was possible for babies to be cute, they're always just wrinkly and sort of gross looking, right? But Hermione and Ron's baby was adorable. She had orange hair and brown eyes and six freckles over her nose. And you know what's crazy? They asked me to name her! How am I qualified to name anyone? Do you know how I chose the name of my owl? I opened up my History of Magic textbook to a random page and picked the name of a saint. Hedwig. That's how great I am at choosing names. Anyways, I named her Rose. Thought I'd propagate the flower name tradition." Harry was alert to any reactions of Draco's but he simply scooted a bit closer and leaned his shoulder against Harry's. "They made me godfather, did you know? That means I'm the godfather of two now, I don't know how I'm going to do that."

They went on like that, Harry talking in a soft voice and Draco listening quietly, for what seemed like a very long time. For once, Harry didn't notice the infinite stars or the white horizon. He and Draco were enclosed in the separate little world of his voice, and it was warm. The roses didn't give off any fragrance, but at this close range Harry noticed for the first time that Draco had a faint smell. He smelled like something warm and clean that reminded Harry of the lemongrass that lined Hermione's windowsills.

This time, Harry was somewhat prepared for the blur and tilt; he thought he could feel it coming. He squeezed Draco's hand gently and told him that he would have to be going soon. He promised to return the next night, and then Draco's world drifted away like so much smoke in the wind. When he opened his eyes, the midday sun was shining through his window.

…

A week passed astonishingly quickly. Harry lost a patient and gained two more. He was also helping Hermione as much as he could; he continued to stabilize her and Rose's magic, and aided when she left the hospital. Draco and Harry continued to talk in his dreams, though it was mostly Harry who did the talking, and they never discussed anything more serious than Harry's Christmas plans (there were none). Harry thought Draco was slowly getting better, but it was impossible to tell for sure, and Harry was beginning to suspect that Draco would never really be able to move on while he was stuck in that never-changing world.

The second Sunday in December dawned bright and cold. The Weasleys were having a brunch to welcome Rose to the family. Hermione and the baby couldn't apparated yet, so Harry stopped by Ron's house to pick them up; he was the only one who'd ever bothered to get a muggle driver's license.

Harry wore a jumper, a puffy jacket, and a long scarf that Molly had knit him two years back wrapped twice around his neck. His breath crystalized in the air and snow crunched beneath his boots as he walked up the path to the Granger-Weasley house. He rapped white and pink knuckles against their door and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he waited.

The door opened to reveal Ron dashing to the kitchen. "Just a mo'," he said, "We'll be right there."

Harry peeked in the slowly swinging door to see a frantic Ron run around gathering items in a satchel, and Hermione coming down the stairs carrying what appeared to be a bundle of scarves and hats and jackets. Harry supposed that must be Rose.

After much bumbling about, they finally got everything they needed and piled into Harry's mild-looking sedan. Two hours later, they were rolling onto the Weasley's dirt driveway, the tires making tracks in the snow.

"Harry! We haven't seen you in ages, come on in," said Molly when she opened the door. She ushered them in and quickly closed the door behind them. "Oh, and this must be Rose, Hermione dear, she's lovely. Ron, go help set up the table, we're almost ready."

Harry unwrapped the scarf from around his neck as he made his way into the burrow; it was cozily warm here and by the time he'd made it to the living room he was down to his jumper.

"Harry, mate, long time no see," called George from near the kitchen doorway. He had his arm around Angelina's waist. Harry smiled and made his way over, realizing that he'd missed this, the atmosphere of warmth and family and people. As he said hi to Ginny, Neville, Charlie, Bill, and Percy, he absently thought of Draco, and felt a twinge of sadness. His wish to figure out a way to help Draco was renewed.

A few hours later, after brunch was served and heartily eaten, Harry had the opportunity he'd been waiting for, although it didn't come in a form he would have asked.

Everyone had been sitting around the table, finished eating but continuing to chat, when Rose began to cry. Softly at first, and Hermione tried to shush her by holding her and bouncing gently. The crying continued, though, and Harry quickly identified the problem. The magic of the house and the many witches and wizards in the room had begun to push on Rose's, and as a result her magic was fluctuating. Harry explained the problem, and Molly, being quite familiar with anything involving children, immediately responded by ushering Harry, Hermione, and Rose upstairs to Ron's old room. There they were ordered to stay, Hermione and Rose relaxing, Harry stabilizing, until Rose fell asleep, the sign that everything was alright again.

For a while they chatted about inane things, how Mcgonagall was doing with Hermione's class, Ron's job at the ministry, Molly's excellent cooking. After a while, Rose stopped crying, though she still wouldn't fall asleep. Harry had to keep a part of his focus on her, monitoring his magic, but he had gotten good at it and now it was mainly a background task in his mind.

"So," said Hermione during a lull in their conversation. "How are things with Malfoy?"

Harry looked at Rose, handing her his pinky to grab. "We don't always have to talk about Malfoy you know."

"I know," said Hermione, and her smile said that she did. "But it's alright. He's a pretty big part of your life right now, right? So we can talk about him."

"Are you sure?" asked Harry. "I mean, I've been talking to him a lot so I know what he's like now, but don't you guys, I don't know… still hate him?"

"Harry, it's been seven years. And he was in the Order at the end. We've put old school rivalries to rest, if you say he's a decent human being now, well then we'll trust you on that."

Harry smiled. "Thanks."

"So how are things?"

The smile faded a bit. "I don't know."

"Why?" Hermione's voice conveyed her concern. Harry was very grateful for it. "What happened?"

"Well I told you about how I told him about Lucius, right?" She nodded. "After that… I tried to help him get through it, but I don't know how much I succeeded. He seems to be doing okay, but I think he's wearing a bit thin. And… his physical condition, in St Mungo's… he's not doing so well."

"Hmm," said Hermione, considering the issue. "Have you guys talked about the gate anymore?"

Harry shook his head. "No, and it hasn't appeared again either."

"Do you think that's a good thing?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Well…" Hermione paused. "You said that you aren't sure any more about what going through the gate will do to Draco, right?"

"Yeah," said Harry, miserably.

"But do you still want him to go through it?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I did, completely, but then when he actually wanted to, when he was going to, I suddenly wasn't so sure. I was afraid that he would when I wasn't there—afraid! I don't know what to think anymore."

"But if he doesn't, he'll just stay trapped forever, right? And meanwhile his real body is dying…"

"Exactly," said Harry. "I don't think he really has much choice. He has to leave, but what if he dies?"

Hermione was silent for a moment. Then she said, simply, "Then he will have died." She shifted Rose in her arms. "Harry, I think we both know that he should have died ten years ago." She was looking at him pointedly. He looked away. "I know you want to save him, and you did; you've kept him alive for this long, but… but perhaps it's time to let go. And who knows, he may not die. But if you leave things the way they are, then his physical body _will_ die, and that's definite."

Harry watched Rose again. She looked like she was about to drift off, and her grip on his pinky was slackening. He sighed and turned back to Hermione.

"You're right, as always." He ran a hand through his hair. "But even if I've decided that's the best course of action, how can I convince Draco of that?"

"Well I think that you should talk to him about it," said Hermione.

"I have talked to him about it," replied Harry. "Extensively. If anything, I think he's more afraid now."

"What's he afraid of?"

"Death, obviously. Dying. He doesn't want to die."

"Why?"

Harry looked at her, confused. "Why? Because… he doesn't want to die. No one _wants_ to die."

"You did."

"What? No, I didn't _want_ to—"

"No, listen to me. You did, you wanted to die. Maybe you didn't want to _die_, but you wanted to protect everyone, and since that entailed dying, you wanted to die. If the cause is good enough, then it's perfectly reasonable to want to die, or I suppose it would be better to say, it's perfectly reasonable to want to _risk_ dying."

Harry was feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. "But he doesn't have a cause; he doesn't have any noble reason."

"Of course he does. It's risk dying or die for sure. The only reason why anyone would choose to die for sure would be because they were so terrified of dying that they couldn't choose the better option, simply because the worse one doesn't require action or decision."

"I suppose… that sort of makes sense?"

"So the question you have to ask him, ask him but don't pressure him, let him answer on his own time—he may have to think about it—the question he has to confront is this: what is he afraid of?"

…

"Draco…" said Harry tentatively that night. He felt strangely nervous, but not frightened nervous, more like… the kind of nervous that made him want to brush his fringe over his scar.

"Yeah?" answered Draco.

They were both sitting in the roses again, Draco fiddling with a paper crane, his wand lying at his side.

"We're friends, right?"

Draco looked up at that, mildly surprised. "Yes, I suppose."

Harry brushed at his fringe. "Do you… I mean, I know this sounds stupid, but do you trust me?"

For a moment Draco simply stared at him. Harry tried not to squirm.

"Yes, I suppose I do."

"Then… well you trust me, right? So you'll listen to me if I have things to say, right?"

"It depends on what you have to say."

"Alright. Okay, but this time, can you just listen? Actually listen, and not just grudgingly sit there until I'm finished? Please?"

Harry bore the scrutiny again, and this time he didn't feel the urge to fidget.

"Alright," said Draco, and his voice was subdued.

So Harry told Draco everything he'd discussed with Hermione (though not in the context of having discussed it with Hermione). He told him that his physical form was dying, and he told the truth about what not-Dumbledore had told him; that he didn't know what would happen if Draco were to pass through the gate. But he also told Draco that he shouldn't go through the gate if he wasn't ready. He should work through why he was so adverse to it, and then, only then once he'd gotten passed that, should he leave.

"And of course this is always your decision. I'm only telling you what I would suggest, but if you choose to remain here then I won't argue with you anymore. But—but I, I…" Harry took a deep breath, and exhaled. He shouldn't put his own hopes and fears on Draco; the decision had to be completely his. "You don't have to decide immediately either. You have time, so just… just think about it, okay?"

There was silence for a long moment, in which Draco unfolded his crane before it folded back up, in the form of a rose. He tossed it aside, grabbed his wand and then paused before setting it back down in the roses and placing his hands in his lap.

"Okay. Alright, I'll think about it."

…

A week later, Draco told Harry what he was so afraid of.

"You know how you were talking about moving on?" he began by saying.

"Yeah?"

"Well I've tried, and I can't. There's nothing here to move on to, and there's too much in the past to move away from." Draco paused.

Harry, sensing where this conversation was going, took Draco's hand.

"I… there's so much to regret," he continued, "I can never get through all of it. I regret everything."

"What is it? What do you regret?"

Draco shook his head. "All of it. I never did anything right."

"What do you mean you never did anything right? You joined the Order, didn't you?"

"I only did that because it was my only option, and because he'd killed my mother."

"Alright, sure, but—"

"No, listen; just let me talk, okay?" He took a deep breath. "This is difficult enough as it is. Don't interrupt or I'll probably stop." Harry nodded. Draco looked at him measuredly, and then continued.

"I didn't do anything right. I failed in every respect. In sixth year, I'd had a choice, and I'd made it. My family came first, over everything. And at first, I was eager to be of use; you remember. But then… but then I realized that it wasn't all glory and conquest. Then I had another decision to make: should I go to Dumbledore? But I never trusted Dumbledore, and besides, I didn't believe that he would be able to keep my whole family safe, even if he'd wanted to, which I don't think he did."

Harry opened his mouth, but Draco shot him a look and he snapped it shut.

"I know that Dumbledore would have helped us," he elaborated. "But it would have come at a cost. You know how he treated Snape, what do you think he would have done with my father? He would have been forced to be a spy, and I didn't want to risk that. So I made the decision, again, that my family must come first.

"Now you have to realize, it wasn't an easy decision. It was difficult, constantly, the thought that I was working to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. I know what you thought of me, but I did love Hogwarts, and I had friends amongst the students, and by that time I knew that the Death Eaters were cruel, crueler than I was prepared to deal with. But I had to keep at it, because I had to keep my family safe. So I let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and failed the school and the students. Then—then when it came time to do as I'd been ordered… I couldn't do it. Because I was a coward, and I was afraid, and I was confused. In the end, I failed my parents too.

Harry desperately wanted to interrupt, but he stayed silent.

"I was too much of a coward to go to Dumbledore at the start, so the students suffered and Dumbledore died, and I was too much of a coward in the end, so Snape had to commit murder and—and Voldemort killed my mother." He paused. "And now my father's dead too. Did you know I never went to see him; I never spoke to him after that night on the Astronomy Tower. How could I… How could I face him? Them? It's my fault they're dead."

Harry was silent for a long moment after Draco finished. He wasn't surprised by what Draco was telling him, but he was surprised by the fact that Draco told him. Surprised, and somewhat honored. He supposed it meant that Draco truly did trust him now, and hopefully it also meant that Draco was taking steps towards moving on. After all, acknowledging the problem was the first step to fixing it, right?

The next part would be tricky, though. Harry had to guide Draco in moving past this, without being too heavy-handed and telling him what to do. Harry knew that if he tried to do that, Draco would turn prickly immediately and shut Harry out. So he had to tread very carefully.

"Have I ever told you what happened to Cedric?" he asked.

Draco shook his head, surprised. "No."

"Well… how much do you know?"

"You guys were in the maze, right? And then the portkey took you to Voldemort. Something happened, and you came back with Cedric's body, saying that Voldemort was back."

Harry nodded. "The cup was a portkey that took us to the graveyard where Tom Riddle's father was buried. When we got there, my scar hurt so bad because of the proximity to Voldemort that I couldn't do anything but watch wormtail murder Cedric. After that they did this ritual and brought Voldemort back to life. I couldn't do anything to stop it, because I was too weak. So I let Cedric die, and I even helped Voldemort revive; they needed my blood and I as good as gave it to them."

"But you fought off Voldemort, right?"

"I was only able to keep him away long enough to get back to the portkey, and that only because our wands shared a core which made all the people Voldemort had killed come out of his wand. I could only escape with their help; it wasn't by my power at all."

"But you tried your best to prevent it, right? And it wasn't like you made the decision to revive him or kill Cedric."

Harry shrugged. "You were doing your best to protect your parents. And it was my decision that brought Cedric there. Even if I meant well, I let him take the cup with me."

"Even still, you—"

"Wait. Let me tell you about Sirius."

And Harry told Draco the story of how he'd lead Sirius to his death. Draco listened quietly, and even gently squeezed Harry's hand once or twice.

"Then, of course, there's what you were talking about before."

"What?"

"The biggest decision I ever made. Because I suppose a hesitation is also a form of decision, right? The decision not to act immediately? I decided to evaluate my own moral ideals, and that decision allowed the war to continue for two more years. Many people died, Draco." He thought of those he knew well. Seamus, Zacharias Smith, Luna, Snape… "I—we all make bad decisions. It's inevitable."

Draco took Harry's hand to his lap and began tracing spirally patterns on his palm.

"But you defeated Voldemort in the end; doesn't that make up for it?"

"I didn't defeat Voldemort, we defeated Voldemort. Saying that I was the one to defeat him just because I dealt the final blow… I can say that you were the one to defeat him since you made the plan. Either way, I don't think that you can keep score and say that this deed cancels out this one. If you're always keeping count, well… that's no way to live your life. There are always regrets, Draco, always."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that… you have to lay the regrets to rest."

"But—"

"I know that you can't forget them, of course you can't. But you have to not focus on them so much, and I think the biggest thing is that you have to come to terms with them."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Harry sighed. "It means that you have to say to yourself, yes, alright, I did these things and they were horrible, but there's nothing I can do about it now, so I will… let it go, let it go so that I can move forward."

Draco wasn't looking at Harry.

"I can't. I can't let it go."

"Alright. But I think you should try. And it will take time, believe me, I know. Forgiving yourself is not easy, but it helps, honestly. So just…. Take your time."

Draco glanced at Harry, doubt in his eyes, but when he looked away again, he nodded.

* * *

A/N: We're almost done! This month has flown by.

Comments, as always, are loved. :)


	5. Chapter 5

V

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

-Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Christmas came and passed. Harry spent it at the Weasley's, and for the first time he felt a bit melancholy there. He'd continued to stave off Hermione and Ron's attempts at matchmaking, and eventually they'd given up. And he was content single, but still, spending Christmas in a house of happy couples was a tiny bit… awkward. Not to say he didn't have fun-he always enjoyed dinners with the Weasley's and this year was just as grand as any other-but he found his mind drifting to Draco more often than not.

When he got home it was already around four in the morning and he was so exhausted that he didn't even dream. The next day was a Monday, which meant he had to go to work.

"Why Mr. Potter, you look positively dreadful," said Winfry, an old lady he'd been treating. She'd been trying to spell her cats to enable them to make tea for her, and ended up making her teapot very angry. In retaliation it spilled magic tea all over her lap. The resulting burns were Harry's job to patch up.

The life of a half-year old Healer was quite glamorous, really.

"I didn't get much sleep last night, that's all," said Harry with a tired smile. "It looks like your burns are healing up nicely."

"If you say so, dear," she replied. She wasn't referring to the burns.

After taking care of his patients, Harry did his rounds in the Janus Thickey ward. As usual, he took a bit longer in Draco's room than anywhere else. He double checked all of the readings, and made sure that Draco's condition really was decaying, all the while trying not to look too long at this Draco's weak form. He much preferred the Draco in the dream, the one full of life and sardonic stubbornness. This Draco brought up too many unpleasant feelings, things like pity and fear.

…

They sat once more with their backs to the fountain, Harry with his legs splayed out and bent at the knee, feet on the ground, Draco cross-legged with a paper crane in his lap. The air was calm and cool, and Harry felt very small in the infinite silence.

"Say," he said into silver-gilded air.

"Yeah?" replied Draco.

"Why do you think you're here?"

Draco glanced at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean… don't you ever wonder?"

"Of course I do," Draco said, tucking a bit of hair behind his ear.

"So…" prompted Harry after a moment of silence, "have you come to any conclusions?"

Draco didn't reply at first, but Harry could see that he was thinking on what to say.

"At first I thought I'd been cursed."

"Seriously? Cursed by who? Weren't you in a safe house?"

"Whom," said Draco.

"What?"

"Cursed by _whom_." Draco repeated, primly. Harry blinked. "Anyway," continued Draco, "I don't know, Death Eaters? I thought I'd probably been cursed at Hogwarts, since afterwards I kept getting into all those accidents."

"Oh, right, I heard about that," said Harry. He grinned. "Is it true that you almost got killed by a flower pot?"

Spots of pink appeared on Draco's cheeks. "That was one time," he muttered.

"Yeah, okay," said Harry, still grinning, "So you thought you were cursed?"

"Right. I made Snape do every diagnostic spell he knew, but nothing came up."

"I'll bet you told Snape he must be doing it wrong and continued whinging about being cursed."

"Yes, pretty much. He just passed it off as bad luck, but I knew something was up. When I found myself here after hitting my head I knew that I was right."

"Do you still think you were cursed?"

There was a moment of silence in which Draco thought about it.

"No," he said eventually. "I stopped believing it was a curse some time ago, really."

"Why?" asked Harry.

Draco fiddled with his crane. "I came up with a new theory." His words sounded final, as though that was all he would say on the subject. Harry thought he understood. This was delicate speculation they were dealing with, and it felt a bit beyond their depth. Somehow it felt taboo to speak of it.

Harry nodded, and pushed just a little bit further. "Do you think it has something to do with Snape and Dumbledore?"

Draco paused in his fiddling, then continued, carefully. "Yes."

A pause, then Harry said, "Do you know who he is?"

Another pause. "I have some inkling, yes," replied Draco.

Nodding again, Harry said, "Do you hate him?"

Draco sighed and tossed the crane to the ground where it turned back into a rose. "I did at first; I felt it was unfair, the whole thing. I mean, I never even wanted—"He took a deep breath and continued, calmer, "But no, I don't think I hate him anymore. I think I… understand where he's coming from, on some level. Nowadays, when I think of him, rather than anger I feel more of a… pity. He seems very lonely."

Draco picked up another rose, and Harry leaned back against the fountain, tilting his head up to the stars. They lapsed back into silence.

…

The next evening, Harry formed a question in his mind before falling asleep. When he opened his eyes again, he was at King's Cross.

Not-Dumbledore was waiting for him on a bench. As Harry made his way over, he thought about how uncanny it was. This Dumbledore that wasn't Dumbledore really did look exactly like Dumbledore. There were little, subtle things that gave him away, especially now when he'd given up the pretense of being Dumbledore, but when he was simply sitting there, Harry couldn't discern a difference.

"Harry," he started by saying. "You have another question for me?"

"Yes," said Harry, sitting down. For a moment he just stared at his lap. Then he took a deep breath, and said, "I was wondering if there is any way to destroy the Elder wand."

Not-Dumbledore didn't say anything for a very long time. Harry glanced at him, and saw that he looked rather tired. His eyes portrayed a strange sort of grateful sadness.

"Yes. There is," he answered finally.

"Can you tell me how?" prompted Harry when the silence dragged on.

Not-Dumbledore turned to face Harry then, and looked him in the eye over his half-moon spectacles.

"Harry, the Elder wand cannot be destroyed on its own. It's all of the hallows, or none. Do you still want to destroy them, knowing this?"

Harry opened his mouth to say, yes, of course he did, but then his thoughts caught up to him and he snapped his jaw shut.

Did he really want to destroy them? All of them? The elder wand, obviously; the resurrection stone… well of course it needed to be destroyed; the invisibility cloak? It was true he hadn't used it in years, but… it was his father's, and had served as a helpful constant for most of his life. Back when he was still with Ginny he'd had vague daydreams about passing it on to his son one Christmas morning. If he were being completely honest, he didn't want to give it up, not at all.

Harry took a deep breath and said, "Yes, I want to destroy them. All of them."

Steady blue eyes examined him, and then Not-Dumbledore nodded. Harry loved his invisibility cloak dearly, but the elder wand needed to be destroyed. He was more than willing to make such a small sacrifice. Besides… perhaps no one had the right to hide utterly and completely.

"It's quite simple, really," said Not-Dumbledore, "and rather similar to how you acquired the philosopher's stone in your first year." He paused and his eyes seemed to look somewhere beyond Harry.

"Sir?"

"In fact… Perhaps Dumbledore knew all along how to destroy the Hallows." A slight twinkle returned to his eyes, but his small smile was sad. "Ah, but of course he would never have been able to do it…"

"Um…"

"You see, Harry—"he turned to address Harry again, "In order to destroy the Hallows you need only have the desire to destroy them. If you have the Hallows, all three of them, but do not wish to use them, then destroying them is a simple matter. They're connected, of course, so if you destroy the wand, the other two will be destroyed as well."

"Alright," said Harry. "But how do you destroy the wand?"

"Any way you wish. You could burn it, reducto it, simply snapping it would do the trick. Just remember, you need to want to destroy all of them; if you don't, it won't break."

Harry thought about that, and committed what he'd said to memory. Then he thought of something else.

"Are you… Is it alright to destroy them? I mean, well…"

"It's okay," said Not-Dumbledore, smiling a little. "I understand what you are trying to say. I have no qualms with the Hallows being destroyed. I will admit that I feel a small amount of remorse, but it is simply the same kind of grief you feel for the invisibility cloak. I know that they should not exist. Such objects do not belong in the world; it is time they were destroyed." He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.

"And now I believe it is time for you to go to Draco. Harry Potter… I am very grateful, and very humbled to have known you."

"Oh, er, no—"Harry stumbled, surprised.

A thin hand was held up, and Not-Dumbledore shook his head. "I think you know it as well… this will most likely be the last time we speak. Harry, I believe I've said it before, but I shall say it again. You are someone very rare, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you, dearly."

"No, no, there's no reason to thank me," said Harry, but the train station had already begun to dissolve. "I've caused so much trouble for you, I'm sorry; you've been so nice and helpful about it all and—"Dumbledore's eyes were still looking at him, but the smile shining through was someone else's. Harry just managed to get out a rushed thank you, and then the mist billowed and swirled and dissolved into nothing.

…

The gate was in the garden once more when Harry opened his eyes. It stood beside the fountain and benches, seeming to be as a unit with them—these figures of stone carved and left there for infinite millennia—and Draco stood before it, stood simply with his head slightly bowed so that his hair spilled down slightly before sweeping over his shoulder in that loose braid of his. As Harry approached, quietly, quietly, he saw that Draco's eyes were closed, and his eyelashes looked like pale cinders against his cheeks.

Harry stood beside Draco, feeling the space stretching out behind them and in front of them, continuing on forever and ever, the roses an infinite repetition and the stars always the same. He felt all at once a strange trembling in his chest and a sudden tightening in the corners of his eyes. For some reason, it seemed suddenly difficult to breath.

Then warm hands enveloped his. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. On the exhale he met silver eyes, turned his hands downwards, and wrapped his fingers around Draco's.

Harry knew what Draco was about to say; he'd seen it in his eyes and in the slope of his shoulders, the curve of his neck, and he was familiar with it, having gone through the same thing those years spent in healing school. The physical change had been visible over the past few days, though they hadn't actually discussed it. Of course, there was nothing left to discuss—they'd already had all of the important conversations. This, this was Draco's transformation and his to perform alone, internally, silently. Harry could only sit on the sidelines and try not to feel what was encroaching at the fringe of his consciousness: the apprehension of what would happen once Draco finally let go. He hadn't let himself think on it, instead focusing on their idle conversations, but there were some things that had crept into his awareness—such as the slight, slight change in the way Draco held himself, and the fact that Draco had stopped making paper cranes.

Harry knew what Draco was about to say, and yet he couldn't help but feel a tiny shock when Draco said it: "I think I'm ready now." Harry closed his eyes and held onto Draco's hands. Draco took a deep breath and continued, "I've done a lot of thinking, a lot of difficult thinking. And I still don't think I can ever really be okay with how much I failed, but I recognize that I was young, and mistakes are bound to be made, and the past is the past. I've spent enough time here; I'm ready to move on."

Harry nodded and opened his eyes, meeting the clear and simple silver of Draco's. He tried for a smile, and thought he succeeded. After all, this was a good thing, and Harry was happy, even if a part of him was shivering in terror.

"I get it," he said. "I'm glad. So…?" Harry glanced at the arch and back at Draco.

Draco smiled, his genuine smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. "See you on the other side, right?"

"Yeah… you'll make it back in time for new year's."

"We'll have to have a grand party," said Draco, and he squeezed Harry's hands.

"Of course," said Harry, squeezing back. "I'll invite Teddy; you can finally meet your cousin."

"I've always wanted to meet a metamorphmagus," remarked Draco.

They lapsed back into silence for a moment. Then Draco said, "Thank you. I mean—for coming here and, well, and talking to me and all. You didn't have to."

"I know," said Harry. "But I couldn't help it. I have this thing called a hero's complex, you see, which just doesn't let me leave people alone when I could be helping them."

Draco's laugh was breathy and brief, but it pulled an easier smile from Harry, and the air seemed to loosen slightly.

But then, in the silence that followed, Draco slowly tried to slip his hands out of Harry's grasp, and Harry instinctively tightened his hold as something fluttered in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed slowly.

"Harry…" said Draco, his voice soft. He slid one hand out of Harry's-this time he let him—and brought it up to his cheek. "I'll see you soon, alright?"

Harry opened his eyes and stared at Draco for a long moment. "Yeah… of course."

Draco nodded minutely, then leaned in and pressed his lips against Harry's. It was short, and chaste, and when Draco pulled back Harry felt as though there was something in his throat again.

Then Draco's hand was falling from his cheek, and his other hand was slipping out of Harry's, and Draco was taking steps back, back towards the arch, and Harry could feel his throat tightening around whatever it was in there. In King's Cross, _he_… he had told Harry that he didn't know whether Draco would come back or not. Harry had told Draco that he _would_ come back, and Draco appeared to believe that. Harry didn't. This was right; this was what should have happened ten years ago. Harry had postponed it, but in the end he knew what the eventuality was. He knew it, and yet… a small, irrational part of him ached with hope, hope that Draco would come back, and that was the worst part.

Draco paused and gave Harry a small smile. And then he was beside the gate, and he took another step, and the world splintered and disintegrated into so much dust and ash. Harry woke up in bed with tears on his pillow and on his cheeks.

…

The first thing Draco felt after he stepped through the gate was confusion. He'd passed under it, and came out the other side—the roses beneath his feet hadn't changed. But then he looked up, and realized that this garden was very different from his garden. In this one, it was daytime. The sky was a shining blue, and clouds drifted in a breeze Draco felt on his skin. He could hear a soft bubbling, and upon turning saw that water was spilling over the basins of his fountain, glinting with the sunlight.

Sitting on one of the benches was his mother.

Draco took a halting step forward, all of a sudden surprised and suspicious. Was this truly his mother, or could it just be another of Snape's tricks? But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, it was gently blown away by the knowledge that this was indeed Narcissa. In a slight daze, he walked the few steps it took to reach her and sat down on her bench.

She turned to him, and her eyes were shining like the sky. "Draco, oh my darling. You've been so brave, and so strong."

"Um…" was all he could say, and he cursed himself for being about as eloquent as Harry.

"I'm so sorry about all of this; If I had known..." she sighed. "But of course there was nothing I could do."

Draco found he had a voice after all. "Do you know what happened? Have you spoken to… him?"

"Yes, I knew what happened, but not until later… after," she responded, without answering his last question.

"Wait," Draco felt something seize up in his chest, suddenly and inexplicably. And he knew, he knew as much as he knew that Snape couldn't lie, he knew but he still had to ask. He couldn't _not _ask. "You… you are… I mean—"

"Yes, Draco, I am quite dead." Her eyes were sad, but understanding, and she took his hand into her lap.

"So then, I…"

"Shh," she said softly, stroking his palm. "I have not spoken to you in so long. There is so much I want to hear, about your life, and what happened to you."

"I—" started Draco, falteringly. "There's not that much to say." He thought about his life then, what had happened before and after her death, and his conversations with Harry came back to him.

"Mother," he was horrified to hear something in his voice, something like a crack. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Mother, I… I'm so sorry, so so sorry. I was so very afraid to see you again, but… but you deserve an apology. I failed you. I'm sorry."

A moment passed, and then he felt her delicate fingers on his cheek, then his chin, lifting his head up so that he would look at her.

"Draco, Draco darling, there's no need to apologize."

"But I—"

"Hush. You were young, and you tried your best, and that's all I ever asked from you, all any mother can ever ask from her son. You tried your best, and you did better than I could ever have hoped."

"What?—but—"

"You chose the right side, and you prevailed in the end, did you not?"

"But… Father—"

"Your father was severely mislead, and I believe he knew it in the end, but was too proud, and too in over his head to acknowledge it."

"Is he… I mean, have you… spoken to him?"

She smiled kindly at him. "Yes, I've spoken to him. He knows now that he was wrong, or rather he knows that the cause was a futile one. The old pureblood ideals are dying out, whether we'd like them to or not. He knows now that the best course of action would be to modernize with the rest of the world, so that we don't get left behind."

Draco nodded slowly. "Yes… I see that now. But back then, I was just doing what I had to, and I didn't do any of it very well."

"Draco, we are proud of you."

His eyes widened; he never thought he'd ever hear those words. As a child, he was always behind—behind Granger in grades and behind Potter in everything else. Then, later, he'd tried so hard, and failed worse than he'd ever done before, and he'd stopped even thinking about pleasing his parents, instead all he wanted was to keep them alive.

"You did well in the end, and that's what counts. We're proud of you, Draco. Yes, both of us. Your father too."

Draco had no words to respond to that, except for a hesitant, and almost reverent in a way, "Thank you."

They lapsed into a soft silence, simply basking in each other's presence. Draco watched the wispy clouds scud across the infinite sky, and it was a novelty. The feeling of the cool wind flickering across his skin and gently drawing his hair out of its braid was like a wellspring to a parched man. Even in their lack of discussion, there wasn't a true silence like the oppression of Draco's world. Here there was the constant liquid sound of flowing water, and on the endless landscape here and there the wind picked up a little flurry of petals only to deposit them a ways away. It was peaceful, but in no way was it static, and Draco loved it dearly.

It was beautiful, but Draco had no wish to spend years here.

A while later, Narcissa spoke again.

"I love having you here, darling," she said in her gentle voice. "But shouldn't you be getting back to your Harry now?"

Draco blinked and turned to her, mildly bewildered.

"What? What are you talking about?"

Her laugh was like the tinkling of the water in the fountain. "My dear," she said, "you're free to go, if you wish it. Once more, it's your decision." She gestured to somewhere behind her and Draco turned to look. He was surprised to see the stone arch standing there; sure that it wasn't there a moment ago. It'd changed—the stone was white marble now, and it suddenly seemed so harmless. He turned back to his mother.

"But aren't I… wasn't I supposed to die?"

She nodded slightly, not in confirmation but in understanding. "You were, originally, yes. He wanted you for quite a while. You were the first one in a very, very long time to elude him, you know, and on accident, too! You weren't even aware of what you were doing!" She laughed a short, breezy laugh. "And then you continued to do it, over and over! Of course he wanted you; of course you were supposed to die. But… time has passed, and if I'm honest I think he's rather taken a liking to you, don't you think?" Her eyes were bright with amusement.

Draco shook his head. "I don't see where you're getting that from. He hated me, he's always hated me, ever since Harry disarmed me instead of killing me."

"Oh no, I don't think so," said Narcissa. "I think you grew on him. I might even go as far as to say that he's developed a little crush!"

Draco made a face involuntarily and shot her a scandalized glance. She just laughed again.

"I'm pretty sure he's always hated me," he said.

"Hmm, well I don't doubt that. But I think he grew to like you beneath that hatred, or perhaps on top of it. In any case, in the end you changed his mind about you, and that's what's important."

"So, what, I'm just free to go back now? Be alive?"

"Yes, I think that's it precisely."

"But that makes no sense," said Draco, thinking. "He doesn't lie, and he told me that my only option was to die."

Narcissa nodded and said, "Yes, at the time that was the truth and entirely the truth. But like I said, you changed his mind in the last moment, and therefore the truth of your situation also changed."

Draco had no response to that. It sounded pretty convoluted, but almost made sense.

"Draco," she said, and her voice was gentle, getting his attention again. "You've made your peace with death. You're free to go, if you wish it."

"If I wish it?"

Narcissa slowly looked around them, and his gaze followed hers, taking in this world.

"This is a crossroads, of sorts," she said. "You have the freedom to decide what to do from this point on. That gate," she gestured to it with a delicate wave of her hand, "will take you wherever you wish to go, be it back to your body or… on."

Draco stared at the marble arch for a moment, his head simultaneously swirling and completely blank. He turned to contemplate his mother. She looked sad, and worn, but somehow younger than he ever remembered her being, and glowing with her love for him.

When he'd left Harry at the arch, he'd stepped through sure that he would not be coming back. They had both known it, but Draco was more than willing to pretend, just for a moment, that he would reemerge alive on the other side. If he hadn't, he didn't think he would have been able to take that final step, and a part of him secretly thought that Harry wouldn't have been able to let him. So he'd pretended, but really he'd known that this was it. He'd made his choice, and he'd chosen to move on.

But apparently he was being given the choice again, a new choice.

The decision should have been obvious—to Draco survival had always come first. But just recently he'd changed his mind, and wasn't that the whole point? He had to think carefully about this decision, but it was difficult, oh so difficult. Years and years of the decisions being made for him, of all manner of choice being stolen from him, and that was just before he hit his head. Now he was being forced to make two huge choices and he doesn't know what to do with himself. And in this sunlight-filled garden there was no Harry to talk to him gently, to tell him mundane stories and to take his hand as though it was made of porcelain. Of course there was his mother, his dear, dear mother, but this decision had to be his alone. To be or not to be, wasn't it?

The decision should have been obvious, but it was not. What would await him? An unfamiliar world, seven years in his future. Most of his friends dead or missing, no father or mother or Malfoy anything. He would have to… start over, and yet not even that luxury would be afforded to him, not with his notoriety. Draco didn't fool himself by thinking that seven years would be enough to make people forget the one who let the death eaters into Hogwarts, no matter what he did afterwards. Rebuilding a life would be a continuous uphill struggle, and he was so tired already, bone tired. It would be so easy to simply… let go…

…

The tea had gone cold a while ago, but still Harry's hands were wrapped around the mug tightly as though to absorb long gone warmth. He stared at his chipped wooden table, feeling oddly blank. Every so often he would glance out his kitchen window and stare at the dark, cloud covered sky. There were about three hours until he had to go to work, but there was no way he could fall back asleep.

It was so strange; you'd think that after so much practice, Harry would have gotten used to the grieving process. But it would seem that he'd grown soft over the past years.

It was a strange paradox of the human mind, mused Harry. Somehow one can't help but dwell on the painful things when one most wants to forget them, but then once you've moved on, they're forgotten. He thought he would have remembered this strange aching emptiness, and the lethargy that made him want to sit in bed all day and wallow. He didn't want to go to the hospital and face the reality, the fact that he suddenly had one less patient in the Janus Thicky ward.

Idly he wondered what would happen now. Would Draco get a funeral? Would anyone care about his death, or would he just be another notice in the back pages of _the Prophet_?

What would Ron and Hermione say? They would express their condolences, of course, because they would know that Harry would grieve for him, but they wouldn't care one way or another, not really. Already, Harry could feel the isolation he would feel, the loneliness, and the sense of being bereft.

He glanced at the clock, and then turned back to the cold tea. Still two and a half hours until he had to go to work. He didn't want to go to work. He didn't want to plaster on a sweet smile and play nice with daft old ladies who try to experiment on their cats, or stupid kids that have a tendency to somehow get their feet stuck in toilets. What he wanted was to lie down and wake up surrounded by roses, to sit up and find Draco waiting for him, a row of paper cranes lying by his knee. Draco would smile at him, that tiny quirking of the lips that only Harry would be able to discern as an expression of pleasure, an expression of happiness that Harry was there with him. And then Draco would make a disparaging comment about Harry's hair or his glasses or his pyjamas, and Harry would smack him, and they would sit and stare at the stars, talking in soft voices about nothing at all.

And maybe… maybe Draco would scoot closer to him, not meeting his eye, and their hands would come together like it was the most natural thing, and maybe, maybe Draco would lean over just so, and Harry would tilt his head to meet him half way, and grey eyes would close and a thin hand would slip into his hair, and pull him closer still, and…

Harry pushed his tea out in front of him, straightening his arms and sliding down until his cheek was pressed against the table. He stared out the window, hating Dumbledore and hating Snape and hating Draco, but most of all hating himself for talking to Draco and advising him to move on. Why had he done such a thing? Why hadn't he just let Draco be stubborn and afraid to die?

He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fingers around the mug, because he knew he would never have been able to leave Draco as he was, and he hated himself for it.

This was awful. Draco was _dead_, and here Harry was _fantasizing _about him still, and wallowing in misery. It was pathetic, and in two hours Harry would have to get up and go to work when really felt much more like simply melting into a puddle of goo on the floor. A miserable puddle of goo. This was awful. Work was going to be awful. Everything was bloody well awful. Harry wished he could rip out his mind to stop all of this thinking and aching.

Then the floo flared, and Sam's head was in his grate. For a second, Harry simply stared at her, his head still resting heavily on the table. Then he blinked slowly, and sat up. She looked frenzied again, but this time her eyes were glinting with a sort of giddy excitement instead of terror.

"Harry!" she exclaimed. "Oh Harry, you have to come, quickly!"

"What is it?" He asked tiredly, pressing one eye with the heal of his palm.

"He's awake! Your patient, Draco Malfoy, he woke up!"

Harry stared at her blankly.

"W-what?"

She nodded impatiently. "Come _on_!"

For a moment he could only stare at her in shock. What was happening? Surely that couldn't be true. Maybe he'd fallen asleep at the table in his exhaustion?

"Harry," she urged, and he jumped up, snapping out of his petrified state.

"Right," he said, "I'm coming."

She nodded, looking relieved, and ducked back out.

Leaving no time to overthink or wonder, he quickly threw on his healing robes (still rumpled from being thrown on his bedroom floor) and rushed out the door. For a split second after apparating he felt a surge of panic when he thought he might have splinched himself. He didn't exactly feel all there. But after a hasty check confirming all of his body parts were with him, he decided he was probably still in shock and rushed into the hospital.

Once again, the nurses took one glance at him and pointed him in the right direction. Not that he needed directions; Harry was sure he could have found Draco's room with his eyes closed.

Somehow the sterile hallways seemed to stretch on forever. Surely there wasn't always this many stairs?

Finally, he skidded to a halt outside of room 417W and burst through the door.

He stopped short just inside the room, bent over with a hand pressed into the stitch in his side, panting, adrenaline still rushing through his veins. The room seemed full of people—nurses and doctors standing around the drips and monitoring charms. In the middle of them was the white hospital bed, and sitting (_sitting_!) on the sheets was Draco, pale and frail, but staring at Harry with eyes that were very much alive.

"You—I thought…" Harry trailed off, feeling very much like a balloon that was just let go to float away into the sky. There was that damned thing clogging his throat again when he looked at Draco, so instead he turned to the healers. "Is he…?"

"Malnourished and his muscles are atrophied, but other than that he's in perfect health," said one.

"A few months of physical and magical therapy and he should be back to normal," said another.

The one beside the bed looked between Draco and Harry, smiling slightly, and said, "Now that your main healer's here, Mr. Malfoy, we'll just take our leave…." And soon the room was empty aside from Draco and Harry.

Harry made his way over to Draco's side with faltering steps. Feeling exhausted now that his adrenaline was gone, he collapsed into the chair and simply stared.

"I thought…"

"I know," said Draco, his voice hoarse and incredibly soft from not being used in seven years. "I thought so too."

"What… what happened?"

"I went through the gate, but when I came out the other side I was still in a garden. It was different though, because it was daytime and there was water in the fountain. And my mother was there."

"You saw your mother?" asked Harry. "Are you sure it wasn't…?"

"Yeah. I just… knew, you know?"

Harry nodded.

"Anyway," continued Draco, "I saw my mum, and we spoke for a while. Basically, she said that since I'd made my peace with death, he didn't want me anymore."

Harry smiled a little at that. "How fickle."

Draco nodded. "So I had to choose again, to come back or to go on."

"Right," said Harry. "And you chose to come back? But…" he didn't want to say it, but all of their conversations were coming back to him and he had to ask. "I thought… you said there was nothing here for you."

"Hmm… yes I did. But I decided that there's always a reason to keep living. Almost my entire life was defined by the war. I'd like to get a chance to… move on."

"That's…" Harry was truly smiling now, almost goofily. He felt light, lighter than he'd ever felt, and somehow all tingly. "I'm glad." He said it in a sigh, an exhalation of relief and pure happiness.

"And," continued Draco before pausing. He fiddled with the edge of his sheet before going on, "I had sort of hoped…"

"Yeah?" Harry prompted when Draco trailed off again.

"Well. I'd sort of hoped that maybe you…"

"Of course," said Harry. "I'll be there with you the whole way."

Draco smiled at that, a soft, easy smile. He was impossibly thin and sallow, and his hair was long and frayed, but his eyes were bright as they gazed at Harry, and Harry felt drawn forward like a magnet, like gravity. Draco leaned in to meet him, and at first it was clumsy, but Draco's lips were soft like old paper, and so warm, and they parted under Harry's with a tiny gasp.

This kiss wasn't like the one they'd shared earlier (was it really just earlier that night?). That one was barely a brushing of lips, and this one was full of life and hope. Draco's tongue brushed against Harry's bottom lip, and Harry reached up to tangle a hand in the messy blond hair as he opened his mouth invitingly.

He couldn't think; he didn't want to think. One of his hands was smoothing through Draco's hair (and it was surprisingly, impossibly soft), the other was creeping onto the bed, his fingers hesitantly seeking out Draco's. Draco reached out to meet him and intertwined their fingers, tilting his head slightly to deepen the kiss.

Harry felt overwhelmed, in the best possible way. His tongue mapped out Draco's mouth slowly but eagerly. He couldn't get enough of this, enough of Draco's taste and his warmth and his smell (sweet, but so very unlike roses, and Harry loved it painfully). He wanted to continue this forever, he wanted to climb onto the flimsy hospital bed and get closer to Draco in every possible way, but Draco's fingers between his felt incredibly fragile and he was probably already tired, just from their kiss.

Harry finally pulled back with a last little lick at the seam of Draco's lips, his breath slightly accelerated, a laugh bubbling up from deep within his chest. He let it out, staying close and gazing at Draco, whose face was tinged pink, and who was breathing quite heavily.

"Your hair's almost as bad as mine," said Harry, feeling like the grin was permanently stuck on his face.

Draco's smile was quiet, but no less full of exhilaration. Then he wrinkled his nose. "Oh _god _I haven't showered in _seven years_!"

Harry's bark of laughter this time was breathy and so easy. Draco scowled and made to hit him, but Harry caught his hand and brought it down to join the others, threading their fingers together. Draco couldn't hold the scowl for long, and soon he was laughing as well, light and animated. Harry squeezed his hands gently, and thought about how wonderful it was to simply be alive.

There was still the elder wand to destroy, and the doctors had said it would take months for Draco's muscles to get back to completely functional. But for now, that could wait. For now, there was the here and now, Draco's laugh mingling with Harry's, and in a few days they would spend new years together (and then hopefully the year after that, and after that), here in the real world, the ever-changing world, together and alive.

* * *

A/N: And we're done! Quite a few months after I planned to be, for which I'm so sorry! Thank you very much to all who reviewed/favorited/alerted. It means a great deal to me when people enjoy what I write. ^^


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